Of Rooks and Ravenclaws
by Tempestas
Summary: Meet Huff le Puff and Rave’n’claw, two (fairly) normal witches out to protect Canon from invasion. When Hogwarts is overrun by an army deadlier than Voldemort's, both they and timid first year Orla Quirke must stave the intruders off.
1. Badgers and Tea

I spell check and proof read, but mistakes get by even the best of editors. If you see anything wrong with the story, then either review and tell me, or e-mail me. Whether it concerns faulty grammar, overly powerful characters, plot holes, or just a general dislike of my style, I want to hear about it. Whether I _take_ your advice or not is, of course, up to me.

I'll hopefully have a chapter out each week, if life cooperates.

And the disclaimer: none of the characters or settings you recognize belong to me. All of that is copyright Ms. Rowling and whatever other companies now have claim to it.

Of Rooks and Ravenclaws

Prologue: Badgers and Tea

A pair of very angry, very deranged, very yellow eyes snapped open in the dark. They glowed with a light of their own. A moment later, a hoarse voice croaked "Lumos," and a wand tip lit up to reveal a rather normal, if messy, bedroom.

Rather normal, that was, except for the large quantities of blood liberally spattered over every available surface, including the sole inhabitant of the room.

Huff le Puff, the owner of the yellow eyes (they were actually the result of tinted contacts, but she would sooner kill you than admit that. Of course, she would sooner kill you than do most things to you, so that wasn't saying much), gazed around herself, absently scratching at the back of her neck with her free hand. She had no idea why her bedroom was bloody, though she could take an educated guess. She didn't particularly care, either.

It came to her that the sheets she was sitting on were soggy, probably from more blood, and that she was getting her robes all wet. She stood up, letting her wand fall to her side point down so that it shed a focused cone of light on the floor at her feet. All of that red made her angry.

She moved her scratching hand around to the front of her throat, then winced involuntarily. The flesh under her jaw was a mass of bruise tissue and lacerations, as if somebody had tried to choke her. That would explain her hoarse voice, at least.

The door on the opposite side of the bedroom creaked open, throwing a bright beam of golden light across le Puff. She raised a hand to cut some of the light, squinting to see who it was. Her grip on her wand tightened instinctively. She relaxed when a familiar form trundled into view around the unmade bed and stopped by her ankle.

She bent down to pat the badger, heedless of its vicious teeth or hefty claws.

"Nice badger," she crooned. "What do you have for le Puff?"

The badger didn't speak, and neither did le Puff, but they seemed to reach an understanding. When the badger lumbered towards the door, le Puff followed it.

Outside she met a smiling and altogether too cheerful Rave'n'claw, who grasped le Puff by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen. Le Puff was shoved onto a stool, where she sat blinking blearily and rubbing the gashes in her arm inflicted by Rave's talons.

Rave skipped around the kitchen, interspersing high pitched giggles with mismatched snatches of song. Her final circuit resulted in her flying off balance and onto le Puff's lap.

"Hello," she trilled brightly, "do I know you?" This inspired a new spate of shrill laughter.

Le Puff shoved her partner off of her lap roughly and shambled over to a cupboard to search for something edible. She dug out an ancient packet of tea and set a dented kettle of water on to boil. While she waited for the water to heat up, she tried to question Rave'n'claw.

"What happened last night?" she asked, rubbing her throat fitfully.

"We got another one," Rave sang. She grinned unevenly at le Puff. "She put up a fight."

Le Puff's fingers flinched away from her wounded throat. "I noticed."

"Aaaw," Rave whined. "Don't be angry, Huff, don't. I hate it when you're angry." She pouted.

Le Puff started to growl, then thought better of it and just glared. Rave'n'claw was the only one who could get away with calling le Puff Huff' without instant evisceration, but that didn't mean that le Puff had to like it.

The kettle chose that moment to begin hooting, and le Puff took it off the stove and finished making her tea.

She had barely seated herself again, clutching a blessedly warm cup of tea, when a crow careened in through the window and dropped onto the table on its back.

Rave hurried over from where she had been seated, sharpening her nails with a carving knife. Le Puff poked lackadaisically at the bird with her spoon.

"Your bird's stoned again," she informed Rave.

Rave looked doubtfully at the crow, then leaned forward to peer into its decidedly unfocused eyes.

"I do believe you're right," she declared, and giggled again. "Doesn't matter so long as it does its job," she said dismissively, untying the roll of parchment from the bird's leg.

She carried it over to the broken window to read, where the first light of the day was filtering in through the shattered panes of dirt-caked glass.

"They've found another one," she informed le Puff at length, after she had spent a few minutes poring over the letter for possible uses of repetitions, simile, metaphor, or foreshadowing.

"Where?" asked le Puff, still prodding the motionless crow with her spoon.

"Hogwarts."

Le Puff looked up at that, a wide grin nearly splitting her face in two. Her head cocked to an almost unnatural angle for a living person, the bruised flesh on her throat standing out spectacularly against her natural pallor. Her fingers tightened convulsively around the cup until it broke under her hands. She didn't even notice when the shards of porcelain cut into her fingers.

"Should we take it, Huff, should we?" Rave asked anxiously, bounding over to le Puff.

Le Puff thought for a moment, her head still cocked at that same broken angle. She wanted revenge for her hurt throat, and more importantly, her damaged pride. She considered then dismissed the idea that she was letting her ego control her, that she might be too weak to take on another one this soon. Rave'n'claw certainly wouldn't be able to do it on her own. She was enthusiastic, but she didn't have the raw power vested in her that le Puff did. "Let's go," she said. "And don't forget to leave a note for the cleaner," she added hurriedly. "My bedroom's all bloody, and I don't want to deal with it when we get home." Their cleaning lady, an implacable woman by the name of Letitia Flich, sister to the infamous (among the student body at least) Argus Filch of Hogwarts, was an expert at getting bloodstains out of _everything._ She had to be, with le Puff and Rave'n'claw as her employers.

Rave squealed delightedly, swooping over to seize the comatose crow by the feet and swing it around in the air.

"Do you hear that, Nevermore?" she shrieked. "We're going to _Hogwarts._"


	2. Family Ties

Chapter one, and much earlier than I'd hoped to get it done.  There isn't much action in this one, but I hope that I've done a decent job introducing Orla.  Again, I beg you to tell me if you see anything wrong.

Le Puff and her merry band aren't in this one – at least not directly.  She'll probably show up again in chapter two or three.

Chapter One:  Family Ties

            At the same time as le Puff and Rave'n'claw were leaving for Hogwarts, Orla Quirke woke up stifling a cry.  One thought ran through her head:

            Can't sleep, the gnomes are going to get me.

            A humorous thought, one made to grace pseudo-intellectual tee-shirts.  If, that was, one wasn't the child of a wizarding family, as Orla Quirke happened to be.

            Once, when she was six, she had put on a pair of galoshes and encountered a garden gnome in the right boot.  Its sturdy little teeth had come crunching down on her big toe, and poor little Orla had had to go to Saint Mungo's for stitches.  Even now, five years later, the old fear of the gnome's gnashing teeth came back to haunt her unpredictably.

            Take tonight, for example.  Her father had made an innocent comment after dinner about getting the gardener to degnome the garden (actually, the way he put it had been more along the lines of "damn gardener's not doing his job.  If he doesn't degnome the garden by Thursday, he can consider himself fired."), and that had set her off.  Now she lay awake in bed, her eyes two bright, almost feverish glints over the top of the covers, convinced that at any moment she was going to hear a high-pitched giggle and feel that exquisite pain as teeth sank into her toes.

            Her rational mind tried to talk her out of it, to no avail.  Orla, it said, you're eleven years old, surely you've escaped your childhood fears by now?

            Her subconscious snarled back sullenly and responded with vivid images of gnome teeth.  The gnomes are going to get me.  They are!

            She burst from her bed with a frightened cry, her hands fluttering around her hysterically.  When the frenzy of terror had past, she stood panting a little in the center of her room, listening to the sounds of the house settling.

            "I'm scared," she whispered.  It was stupid to be scared, she knew that.  She was eleven; she was old, and mature.  She had no right being scared.  Only little babies of nine or ten got scared because of gnomes.

            "But I'm _scared_."  The sound of her own voice, amid the creaks of the house, frightened her even more.  There was no way she was getting back to sleep tonight, that was for sure.  She picked her way across the floor, avoiding the scattered clothes and books on it.  With a sigh, she settled on the window seat, pushing aside the fluttering curtains to look out into the night.

            A new, more disturbing thought occurred to her: What if the gnomes were climbing up the side of the house?

            She glanced down nervously, tucking her bare toes under the hem of her nightgown.  Nothing moved on the walls, save for the faint shadows of the tree branches, and she relaxed again with a relieved sigh.

            You're paranoid, her rational mind scolded.

            Better safe than sorry, her subconscious shot back.

            If you're not careful, you're going to get shipped off to Saint Mungo's permanently.  You're crazy, you know.  It's not reasonable, to be so afraid of something like gnomes.

            She shifted uneasily in her seat, her lips drawing into a thin line.  It wasn't pleasant, hearing that sort of thing, even from her own mind.  She shut that voice out with a toss of her head.

            _Gnomes!_  Her breath caught in her throat as something below skittered across the grounds in a definitively non-shadowlike manner.  She faced one terrifying moment when her mind dissolved into a flurry of panic, then she got herself under a semblance of control.  The gnome can't get up here, she reminded herself firmly.  It doesn't even know that I'm here.  Her subconscious gibbered at her, but it was contained.  The creature scampered through another patch of light, and Orla saw that, whatever it was, it wasn't a gnome; it was moving on four legs rather than two.  That was some relief, at least.  Of course, her older brother was always teasing her about all of the nasty creatures out there, creatures _much _nastier than gnomes.  And whatever was doing on the grounds at one in the morning?

            Whatever it was, she didn't find out.  Satisfied that the creature wasn't a gnome, exhaustion hit, and she sank into sleep with narry a mutter.  If she dreamed, she didn't remember.

            She woke up disoriented and with a very stiff neck.  The first was easily dispelled, as she recognized her whereabouts (if not the reason she was there) after a moment.  The latter stayed with her as she got dressed.  A lazy glance at the clock caused her to jump a little and bite back a curse.  It was already ten, how could it already be ten?  She struggled into a pair of robes with a cursory sniff to make sure that they were reasonably fresh, trying frantically to shove her head through an armhole before she got them on the right ways around.  After quickly dragging a brush through her hair, she sprinted out the door and down the hall, hoping desperately that she wasn't late for breakfast.

            She paused at the top of the stairs to catch her breath and tug her robes straight.  Though not a pretty girl, she was striking in her own manner.  Her nose was aquiline, the planes of her face sharp, and her dark eyes intense behind thick lashes.  Her hair, cut, one might almost say chopped, short brushed her cheeks when she moved.  Its thick, oily texture was apparent just from appearance.  It looked like an animal's pelt rather than human hair.

            "Orla!' her mother's voice drifted up from the dining room.  "Are you coming to breakfast?  Your father and I are waiting."

            "Yes, Mother," she called back.  Her mother didn't sound irritated, so she had the time to make her way down the stairs at a dignified walk rather than a mad scramble.

            She reached the dining room and bowed to her parents before taking her seat.  Her father didn't look up from the tome he was engrossed in, but that was no surprise.  He was an editor for the Flourish and Blotts' publishing incorporation, and his work never seemed finished.  Orla had never seen him without a book in his hands.  Her mother inclined her head to her daughter regally.

            "How did you sleep, dear?" she asked, cutting the biscuit in front of her into miniscule bits before conveying them to her mouth.

            "Fine," Orla replied, more interested in piling as many pieces toast onto her plate as possible.

            "I sent in the reply to your Hogwarts letter," her mother said, cutting an already minute piece of biscuit in half again.

            Orla nodded, not looking up from her breakfast.  Unlike Muggle born students, she had been expecting her letter for years, ever since she had accidentally turned the neighbor's dog into a fern when it tried to bite her.  Her mother had purchased her school things at the beginning of the summer.

            "I've also received news that—" her mother began, but the sound of the door opening and a cheerful "Hello!" cut her off.

            Orla shot to her feet and dashed to the front hall even before her mother's request that she go and see who that was.  Her nighttime fears, which had been lurking in the shadows of her mind, retreated to a distant and altogether unimportant memory.

            "Theo!" she shrieked delightedly, and threw herself into her brother's arms.  Theodotus, known to his mortification as Theo to family, had inherited their mother's looks rather than their father's.  He was neat and spare, with a small pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of his pencil thin nose and hair held back in a tidy horsetail.  He moved with a certain economy that, while not precisely graceful, was nevertheless pleasing to the eye.  He had also grown short, Orla found as she hugged him.  Last year when he visited he had been two or three inches taller than she was, now they were the same height.

            As their mother entered the hall they broke apart hastily and shook hands, showing the proper amount of enthusiasm for a well-liked sibling and no more.  Theo's careful mockery of their mother's formal expression had her biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.  Their mother smiled and leaned forward to kiss Theo on the cheek, taking his hands in hers and leading him gently across the hall towards the dining room.

            "And how are you?" she asked, sounding genuinely pleased beneath her dignified veneer.  "You haven't visited in months.  I'm sure your father will be delighted to see you."

            Theo's eyes found Orla's across the room, and he winked at her.  She wrinkled her nose back at him, trailing after their mother.  Their mother's quest to wrest their father from his books was a ceaseless source of amusement for them both.            "Archibald," their mother said, "your son's come home.  Why don't you say hello to him?"

            Their father's eyebrows, the only part of him visible above the tome, wriggled expressively.  He grunted something that could have been interpreted as a welcome or as a request to be left alone.

            "Well," their mother said, clasping her hands above her breasts, "now that we've all been reacquainted, tell me how your trip went."

            She settled herself back in her chair and stared raptly at Theo, as if nothing interested her more than his recitation of facts and figures.

            Theo sold wizarding insurance: protection against broom accidents, or Apparation mistakes.  He adored his job, and could quote a never ending stream of statistics about the latest insurance rates.  It was, to Orla's way of thinking, the one flaw in an otherwise admirable sibling.  She let Theo's nattering about the skyrocketing cost of collision protection for teenage wizards fly over her head and concentrated on her breakfast, pausing only to nod and say 'mm-hmm' in the appropriate places.  She was just finishing her final piece of toast when her brother said, "I brought something special back for you, Orla, a present for your first year at Hogwarts."

            She leapt to her feet, insisting that he tell her what it was, and tell her _now._  She skipped around him, ignoring her mother's remonstrations that a young witch should show restraint, and continued pestering him as he trooped out to the front hall where his things were still piled.

            He shoved trunks aside until he'd found a large domed cage covered in a cloth.  With Orla peering over his shoulder, he pulled aside the cloth to reveal what at first glance appeared to be a large ferret.  It squinted at the sudden light, yawning to reveal a number of very white, needle sharp teeth.

            "Yaah," it snarled, "whatcha youse lookin' at?"

            Orla stared.

            "It's a jarvey," Theo explained.  "I thought it could be your familiar."

            Orla threw herself upon her brother again.  "It's perfect!" she cried.  A jarvey, why hadn't she thought of that?  Jarveys ate gnomes, every wizarding family knew that.  If she had a jarvey, no gnome would dare to come near her.

            "Bignose freaks," the jarvey muttered, and went back to sleep.

            Their mother made disapproving noises in the background.  Orla turned to her, looking as prim, proper, and pleading as she knew how.

            "Please?" she asked.

            Her mother's stern look softened a bit, and she nodded reluctantly, though not before throwing another disapproving look at the jarvey cage.

            "If you can train it not to speak so foully then you can keep it," she said.  She swept back into the dining room with a final glare at the sleeping jarvey.

            Orla and her brother exchanged triumphant looks and hunkered down by the cage again.

            "What're you going to name him?" her brother asked.  His normally solemn eyes were dancing, whether at pleasing his sister or circumventing his mother Orla didn't know.

            "Gnasher," she said.  "Because that's what he'll do to the gnomes," she explained, seeing her brother's blank look.

            "Y'know, Orla, about this gnome fixation…" her brother began, but he didn't finish whatever he was going to say, because the door opened again.  A pair of feet in worn, overly large boots tromped through the door and stopped on the threshold of the entrance hall.

            "What," sneered a voice laden with aristocratic overtones, "seems to be going on here?"

            Orla and Theo both shot to their feet, identical expressions of guilt on their faces.  They hadn't been doing anything wrong, Orla knew, but somehow her Aunt Arane always managed to make her feel as if she'd been caught with doing something criminal and vaguely obscene.  She was suddenly very aware that she'd worn these robes yesterday, and that she had a smear of syrup on her cheek.  Beside her, Theo surreptitiously tugged his shirt straight.

            Arane was an imposing woman, with a nose like a hawk's beak, as aristocratic as it was prominent.  Her eyes glittered darkly and without any emotion other than vague disdain as she stared at her niece and nephew.  Though she was dressed roughly, in a shirt and trousers worn to a nondescript gray with age, she exuded a refinement that made all Orla feel plebian and whey-faced by comparison.  It was, Orla recognized in a dim, wordless way, the kind of attitude that her mother tried to mimic.  Arane was a tall woman, towering even over Orla's father, and she knew how to use her height.  She loomed over her comparatively short relations like a glacier.

            "Don't fidget," Arane ordered.

            They both went stock still.

            "Now, answer my question," she repeated.  "What seems to be going on here?"

            Orla gulped and summoned the courage to answer.

            "Theo was just showing me the jarvey he brought home."  She quailed as Arane's gaze swiveled to concentrate on her.  It felt like being under a high powered spotlight.  "It's going to be my familiar," she said with a trace of defiance.  Arane frightened her, but gnomes scared her more.

            Arane glanced down at the slumbering jarvey, her lip curling in disdain.

            "This?" she demanded, nudging the cage with her foot.  "This is an appropriate familiar for a pureblood?"

            Her prodding had awakened the jarvey.  Upon seeing Arane's large boot, it dashed to the other side of the cage, puffing up and hissing like a cat.  Arane bent down to peer more closely at it, her hands clasped behind her back.

            "What a perfectly disgusting creature," she said, her voice almost pleasant.

            The jarvey looked as if dearly wished to reply with something inventive and insulting, but didn't quite dare.  Orla sympathized with it perfectly.

            There mother swept back into the hall with a swish of skirts, no doubt to see why her children hadn't returned to the table.  Orla looked up from where she had been fiercely studying her toes in time to see her mother's face crease into a brilliant smile.

            Orla kept from shaking her head in bewilderment only because she knew her aunt would indubitably see and want to know why she'd been fidgeting.  Her mother's love of her older sister never ceased to confound Orla.  She didn't see how the same set of genes could produce a perfectly lovely woman like her mother, and a monster like Arane, or how the two could like each other.

            The sisters embraced, Orla's mother looking threadbare and worn next to Arane, though she was the younger of the two.

            "Arane, how simply _splendid_ to see you!" her mother gushed.  Orla rolled her eyes.  Even Theo didn't get a welcome like that.

            "Wenelda, a pleasure as always," Arane replied dryly, breaking off the contact.  "You're looking well."  Before Orla's mother had a chance to return the complement, she continued.  "Your Orla has told me that this… thing is to be her familiar," she said, jolting the jarvey's cage with her foot again.

            "Well, yes," Orla's mother faltered.  "I didn't think that there was any harm in it.  After all, she's reaching the age where she needs to make decisions on her own, now that she's going off to school.  I thought that once she'd realized what a poor pet the creature made she would discard it…" She trailed off, looking anxiously at her sister for approval.

            Arane grunted, and their mother brightened again.

            "But why are you here so early in the year?  I didn't think that your shift finished until the end of September."

            "Oh," Arane said lightly.  "I pulled a few strings and got off early.  I thought that I'd come and help you get Orla off to Hogwarts."

            Orla and Theo could only gape at each other, stricken.


	3. The Game Begins

More Orla. Hopefully the next chapter will turn out a tad more exciting. 

I'm curious – is my jumping around in time terribly jerky, or does it flow naturally?

Chapter Two:  The Game Begins 

            Later, Orla couldn't say how she got through the remaining week leading up to Hogwarts without resorting to homicide, suicide, or both.  Arane wasn't making any allowances for Orla's last days of freedom before school.  She scolded, scowled, and sneered with the same vicious profusion.

            Theo escaped the brunt of their aunt's abuse with the excuse of 'work', and Orla took to spending as much time in his rooms as possible.  Even listening to Theo talk about insurance was preferable to getting the evil eye from Arane.

            At last, September first arrived.  Orla awoke (properly in her bed this time, she'd been too frightened of Arane the past few days to get worried about gnomes) feeling strangely exuberant.  She placed the reason after a moment: after today she wouldn't have to deal with Arane until the winter break.

            She bounded out of bed, smiling.  Her room looked strangely bare and large without the posters she'd hung up on the walls.  They had all been packed the night before, in the trunk downstairs.  She threw on the pair of robes she'd left out last night and hurried downstairs, hoping to beat her aunt to breakfast.

            Her luck died with a sullen croak.  Arane was sitting at the kitchen table, munching on a piece of dry toast.  She still wore the worn work boots she'd arrived in; Orla had never seen her with them off.  Then again, she didn't really want to see Arane's bare feet.

            Orla's appetite disappeared.  Her mouth went dry as she caught sight of her aunt.  She tried to back out of the kitchen surreptitiously, but Arane's gaze had already fixed on her.  Her aunt's eyes glittered scornfully, as if daring her niece to try and run for it.

            "Good morning," Orla said as calmly as she could.  She walked over to the table and took a piece of toast from the plate in the center.

            "I'll thank you to get your hands away from my breakfast, girl," Arane said, not bothering to return the greeting.

            Orla looked from the piece of toast in her hand to the stack on the plate incredulously.  She didn't see how her aunt was going to fit all of that in her stomach.  Instead of saying as much, she put the piece of toast gingerly back on the teetering pile.

            Arane shot her another glare, perhaps suspecting that Orla was mocking her, and went back to her breakfast.  Thankful to have escaped so lightly, Orla fled out of the kitchen and back into the front hall.

            Theo came down the stairs soon after Orla's encounter, rubbing his eyes and yawning.  He took in Orla, sitting on her trunk with her knees drawn up under her chin, and stopped, opening his mouth.

            Orla put a finger to her lips, frantically waving her other arm.  Theo stared at her, but thankfully didn't say anything.  She pointed in the direction of the kitchen and drew herself up haughtily, crooking her finger in front of her nose like a beak.

            Understanding dawned in Theo's eyes.  He crept over to her noiselessly so that they could whisper.

            "The Arachnid's in the kitchen?"  They'd settled upon the title as a proper one for their aunt, a subtle way of getting their revenge.  Even if their aunt didn't know that they'd been insulting her, the satisfaction of doing so still remained.

            Orla nodded.

            "She's in a _really _foul mood today," she whispered back.

            "Probably because she won't have anyone to torment after you leave."

            "I'll thank you not to talk about me where I can hear you," Arane said.

            Orla and Theo's heads shot up, their mouths open in identical Os of dismay.  Their aunt was leaning against the kitchen's doorframe, her arms folded in front of her.  She seemed more amused than angry, and that worried Orla much more than a good bout of righteous rage would have.  Arane could delay vengeance for months while searching for the perfect punishment, and whatever form it took would indubitably be thrice as bad for the wait.

            Arane opened her mouth, but she shut it again with a snap as Orla's mother swept down the stairs, looking cool and refined.  Orla gulped, not missing the vicious twinkle in her aunt's eyes before Arane's distantly polite mask wiped her features clean of anger.

            "Orla, darling, are you ready to leave home so soon?" she asked, pausing artfully to strike a pose on the last step.

            Orla got to her feet, wishing that her mother had taken a few more minutes with her primping.  She would much rather have gotten Arane's revenge over with now, rather than have to watch her every move at Hogwarts, for fear of her aunt.

            She shook her head and forced a smile onto her face.

            "I don't want to leave, mother," she said.  "I was…" she cast around for a good reason.

            "She was just making sure that Gnasher was all right," Theo supplied hurriedly.

            Orla bit the inside of her cheek to keep from wincing, as both her mother and aunt stiffened.

            Arane didn't do anything other than snort, mimicked by her mother with a more ladylike sniff.  Her aunt's apathy frightened Orla more than her mother's silence.  By all rights Arane should have sneered and said something cutting about inferior pets for inferior people.  Orla thought uneasily of her aunt compiling a mental list, stockpiling slights the way dragons collected treasure.

            Her father came downstairs with his robes around backwards and his tie undone, his nose still buried in a book.  He adroitly maneuvered around Orla's mother, and came to a stop before her trunks, never lifting his eyes from the page.  The small quill he held in his free hand, bespelled never to run out of ink, descended to scribble something in the margins.

            "Archibald," Arane said, her voice pleasant.  "How nice of you to join us."  She looked him over, from his mismatched socks to the tag sticking out from the neck of robes, then looked over at Orla and sneered.  Orla blushed, her hands balling into fists.  She wished that she knew enough magic to curse her aunt into oblivion, a jinx that would leave some permanent and debilitating disease, like leprosy.  True, she and Theo had often laughed about their father and his obsession with his job, but there was something very different about their gentle disparagement and Arane's cold sneer and black eyes.

            Orla's mother coughed and clapped her hands together, smiling a touch too brightly.

            "Why don't we head on over to the fireplace.  There's a Floo station at King's Cross, I think that would be the easiest way to get there.  Much more efficient than trying to hunt around for it in the Muggle station," she said.

            Her husband grunted, as did Arane.  Orla picked up one end of her trunk, and Theo took the other, balancing the covered jarvey cage on top.  Together, they managed to lug it into the dining room, also the location of the only fireplace big enough to act as a Floo station.

            Theo went first, with the trunk balanced on its narrow end beside him.  A whirl of brightly hued flames later and he was gone.  Then it was Orla's turn.  She stepped into the fire and threw down her pinch of Floo powder, shouting out "King's Cross" as she went.  The fire swirled sickeningly around her, then spat her out again.

            She stumbled a bit before catching her balance, clutching the jarvey cage to her chest.  Theo caught her by the forearm and gave her a grimace of sympathy.  Neither of them cared for traveling by Floo, it wasn't very easy on the stomach.  Once she was sure she wouldn't fall down or throw up, she put down the jarvey cage carefully, so as not to wake its inhabitant.

Around her, witches, wizards, and children bustled around the station.  Every so often, flames would burst into life in one of the many grates set in the wall behind her, and another person would stumble out in varying states of disorientation.

            Theo caught their mother as she came through.  Wenelda's face had gone an odd, cheesy white, and she had a hand clapped to her mouth.  She dealt with travel by Floo even worse than both of her children combined.  Orla turned away with a wince, the sight of someone throwing up, especially her own mother, was likely to make her sick too.

            Examining the crowd and fixedly ignoring the sounds of retching from behind her, she caught the edge of a conversation as two witches walked past her examining a map.

            "But are you _sure _this is Nine and three-quarters?  It doesn't seem—"

            "None of the other trains were red, and you didn't have to walk through walls to get to them.  Yes, I'm quite sure."

            "Then where have the carriages gone?  This can't be the way to get to Hogwarts if there aren't any carriages!"

            They stopped and turned to face each other, folding their arms simultaneously.  The map got rather wrinkled in the process, Orla noticed.

            "They must have gotten rid of the carriages when the rest of the world did, 'Claw," the shorter figure explained patiently.

            "But the carriages were _tradition_!" the one called 'Claw protested.  She seemed very near tears.

            Orla walked closer, intrigued.  Yes, it was rude to eavesdrop, and to interrupt, but…

            She cleared her throat.

            Both of them whirled to face her, their hands going for their wands.  Orla stared, regretting her decision to interrupt very, very badly.  Two pairs of eyes, one yellow, one blue, glared down at her.  They rather reminded her of how Arane looked at her, except it was twice as bad with two people doing it at the same time.  She tried not to squirm.

            "I… er, I think they got rid of the carriages in the eighteen hundreds," she squeaked.

            The squat dog by the shorter woman's feet growled threateningly and lumbered towards Orla.  At least, Orla thought it was a dog until she saw the stripes running down its back.  A badger, she thought faintly, backing a way.

            "Back, badger," the short woman said, confirming Orla's guess.  The badger snarled in Orla's direction again, then obediently trundled back to its owner's side.  Orla barely refrained from gagging.  That last growl the badger had sent her way had stank of what had probably been its dinner.  It smelled like something long decayed.

            "This is the Hogwarts Express, though," Orla said hurriedly, pointing at the large red steam engine.

            "Huh.  Thanks," the shorter woman said.  She glanced down at the very wrinkled map she was holding.  It was upside down.  "What's your name?"

            Orla briefly considered giving a false name, but if these people were looking for the Hogwarts Express it made sense that they would be going to Hogwarts, though they looked too old to be students, and nobody in their right mind would hire them on as teachers.  She might run into them again, and they might find out that she had lied.  Besides, her mother had raised her to be polite.

            "Orla Quirke," she said.

            The woman bowed to her formally.  Not sure of what else to do, Orla bowed back.

            "I have to be going now," she said before they could introduce themselves. She most emphatically did _not_ want to know their names.  In the wizarding world, there were many things you were better off not knowing, and this seemed one of them. "Maybe I'll see you again."  She very much hoped that she didn't.

            She all but ran back to her trunk, arriving just in time to see her mother wipe her mouth with Theo's handkerchief.  Her father stepped through the grate.  He hadn't even stopped reading while in transit.  The very thought of trying to read amongst the swirling vertigo of Floo travel made Orla ill.  Arane came after him a moment later, not a hair out of place.  Her upper lip curled in a way Orla was much too familiar with as she took in the milling masses around the platform.

            "Shall we get this over with?" she drawled.  She looked at her sister, who was sitting on Orla's trunk and looking very pale, with something approaching concern.  All she said was, "Pull yourself together, Wenelda."

            Orla scowled and wished that she dared to grab her wand and try a good old 'Incendio' on Arane's robes.

            Her mother nodded and stood up, swaying slightly.  Theo caught her arm and glared at Arane, who stared back at him.  Theo dropped his eyes.  Arane shook her head, a small, cold smile touching her lips.  Their father stood by lost in his book, oblivious to the small power play that had just taken place.

            "You take the luggage, I'll take my sister," Arane said, moving to take possession of Wenelda's other arm.  She took it with surprising gentleness, but Orla bristled all the same.  It felt like Arane was reducing Wenelda to another pack to lug along.

            No matter how offended she felt, she wasn't about to argue with her aunt.  She heaved up her end of the trunk and, with Theo on the other end, carried it over to the train.  Their father trailed after them.

            They loaded her trunk on quickly, and then there was nothing to do but stare at each other look awkward, Orla still holding the bulky cage.  Well, except for Arane, who just stood and sneered at everyone impartially.  Orla didn't think that her aunt could look awkward if she _tried_.

            Their mother, who had by now recovered some of her color, was the first to step forward and hug Orla.

            "Be good, and make sure to pay attention to your teachers," she said when she stepped away.  Her eyes were overbright.  Orla looked away, seeing one's mother cry was almost as embarrassing as seeing her throw up.

            Theo just clapped her on the shoulder and grinned.

            "Have fun.  And don't let the spiders bite," he whispered when he leaned in to hug her.  The corners of Orla's mouth twitched but she kept the smile off of her face, mindful of their aunt's presence.

            Her father, to her intense surprise, actually lifted his head to say goodbye to her.  She stepped forward to hug him around the waist, below the book he was already reading again.

            Last was her aunt.  She stared at Arane with something approaching disgust; she didn't care what her mother said, she was _not_ hugging her aunt.  Luckily, Arane was eyeing her niece with a similar expression of intense dislike.  It was the one time Orla didn't mind being looked at as if she was something slimy and small that ought to be killed quickly.

            She was unprepared when Arane grabbed her shoulder and led her away from the rest of the group.  For a moment she stiffened, thinking that Arane meant to actually embrace her, perhaps as some twisted form of revenge.  But as soon as they were a few feet away from Orla's family, Arane released her shoulder quickly and wiped her hand on her pants.  Orla looked up at her aunt fearfully; she had the feeling that Arane wasn't going to tell her to have a good time.

            "Now see here girl," she said sternly.  "You come from a long line of pureblooded wizards, and I'm not having a lumpish little cretin like you soiling our family name.  I would strongly suggest that you get into a respectable House and apply yourself to your studies.  Remember, I'll be there when you come home."  With that pleasant farewell over with, Arane stalked back to the rest of the family, people jumping out of her way right and left.  Orla elbowed her way through the crowd in the normal fashion, wishing that if nothing else she had inherited the menacing air that made people get out of Arane's way.

            The train's whistle shrilled, and its long smoke pipe began to chug out steam.  Orla hopped aboard and waved to her parents one last time.  She pointedly didn't look in Arane's direction, yet she couldn't help getting a glimpse of her aunt standing with her arms crossed and one foot tapping impatiently.

            "Don't forget to feed Gnasher!" Theo shouted to her over the thundering chug of the engine.

            Orla's sight doubled, trebled, and blurred into meaningless blots of light and color, her eyes burning with tears.  They might not be very impressive, but they were her family and she loved them (exempting her aunt, of course).  When she had finished wiping her eyes on her sleeve in what she hoped was a suitably nonchalant manner, her family had already left.  Biting back a bit of bitterness at their swift disappearance – no doubt they had Apparated, something they had been unable to do with her along – she turned to hunt for an empty cubicle, Gnasher's cage in hand.


	4. Tolkien and Trouble

            I'm sorry about the delay in finishing this.  Part of it was my own laziness, and part of it was my computer getting a glass of water dumped into it.

            The first male character with a speaking role shows up, though he's not a terribly exemplary example of the gender.

Chapter Three:  Tolkien and Trouble

            She didn't have to hunt for a compartment for long, the third one she checked only had two occupants.  She forced the door open, struggling with it and the bulky cage she still carried.  The two people already in the compartment looked up at her arrival, but didn't offer to help.

            "Can I sit here?" Orla asked when she'd finally managed to enter.

            The girl glanced at the boy and shrugged.

            "S'fine with me," she said, and went back to her book.  The boy didn't even look up from where he was writing busily in a journal, the tip of his tongue sticking from his mouth.

            Orla studied them both with interest.  They were both dressed so strangely that they had to be Muggles, and she'd never had much of a chance to see Muggles up close before now.  Her family generally only associated with other wizards and witches.

            The girl was short and skinny, with lank, mousy hair and glasses so thick that they looked like the bottoms of milk bottles.  When she yawned, Orla could see that her teeth were festooned with metal wires.  She stared, fascinated, at the strange dental paraphernalia.  Maybe it was some sort of Muggle fashion.  It certainly looked quite vicious.

            The boy's teeth were free of strange metal, but the rest of his appearance was disturbing enough to make up for that.  His hair had been badly died black, she could see the lighter roots from where she sat.  He was dressed in a mixture of fishnet and leather, with so many intertwining buckles and straps that she got dizzy trying to trace one's route with her eyes.  Similar to the girl, he wore glasses, but his were far more petite than hers, and they had red lenses.  Orla was wondering if he had some sort of eye problem, and if not, how he managed to see through his strange glasses, when he asked:

            "Which do you think sounds better?  'Oh decadent worm of corruption, thine eyes bore into my twisted soul', or 'Oh worm of decadent corruption, thine soulless eyes bore into my twisted heart'?"

            "Er…" said Orla.

            "Neither," the girl put in, looking up from her book.  "They're both awful."

            The boy pouted, a disturbing expression on an eleven year old.  "You just don't have any appreciation for Great Art," he said.  You could hear the capitals.

            The girl snorted and proceeded to ignore him.

            "I don't think worms have eyes," Orla said hesitantly.

            "It's a metaphor," the boy grumbled.

            "For what?"

            At this, the boy looked most discomfited, going almost as red in the face as his glasses' lenses.  He changed the topic.

            "I don't think that we've been introduced," he said.  "I'm Jared Nightwing.  And you are?"

            "Orla Quirke," Orla said.  "What were your parents thinking when they named you 'Jared Nightwing'?" she asked after a moment.  "No offence meant, but that's a really weird name."

            Jared drew himself up in his seat, looking outraged.  "It's no weirder than Orla Quirke!" he protested.

            "Yes it is," Orla said, not flustered.  She'd just spent a week dealing with Arane; no Muggle temper tantrum could match up.  "At least my name doesn't sound like something created by pointing at random words in a dictionary."

            "At last!" the girl said, closing her book.  "Someone with sense.  Nice to meet you, Orla.  I'm Alexis Rivers."

            "That's a sensible name," Orla said approvingly.

            "Nice to know that I have your permission to use it."

            Orla didn't know what to say to _that_, so she followed Jared's example and switched the subject.

            "What're you reading?" she asked, craning her neck around to get a glimpse of the cover.

            Alexis brightened immediately.

            "_The Silmarillion,_" she said, proffering the book for Orla to examine.

            Orla took it and stared down at its cover, gaping.

            "The pictures aren't moving!" she gasped.

            "Most pictures in Muggle literature don't," Alexis said, her voice a touch patronizing.  "I was surprised when the pictures in my textbooks moved.  It's just a matter of what you were raised with."

            Orla handed the book back after a quick glance at the blurb on the back cover.

            "It doesn't look that interesting.  I don't see why anyone would be interested in a bunch of house elves doing battle.  They're so short that they wouldn't make very good warriors."

            Alexis stared at her.

            "House elves?" she asked at last.

            "Servants," Orla explained, remembering that Alexis was a Muggle.  Though if she was reading a book about them, she really should know what they were.  "Short, wrinkly, big ears.  They serve rich pureblood families."

            Alexis shook her head and laughed.  "Tolkien's elves are nothing like that," she said.  "They're… they're…" She tried to come up with suitable adjectives, then shook her head again.  "I'll lend you my book when I'm done.  Then you'll understand."

            Orla leaned back in her seat, much confused.  She still didn't understand why anyone would want to write (or read) about house elves.  Absently, she looked out at the passing scenery, most of which was hidden in mist.  Both Alexis and Jared had gone back to their original activities, and she wished desperately that she had brought something to do.

            "I'm going to get a drink of water," she announced, getting up.  Jared ignored her with a scowl, and Alexis only nodded without looking up.

            She left, and then there was nothing to do but wander up and down the corridors looking in on all of the laughing, talking people on the train.  There didn't seem to be water anywhere.  She was just about ready to turn around and head back when a hand seized hold of the collar of her robes and dragged her into a compartment.

            She landed on her rump, the breath whooshing out of her before she could think to scream.  A wand was pointed at her head.  Orla stared at it and gulped.

            "Oh," said a vaguely familiar voice.  "You again."

            The wand withdrew, and Orla was yanked to her feet to meet the unnatural yellow eyes of the witch she'd talked to in the station.  Her badger was shredding one of the seats.  The other witch was busy ripping pages out of _The Standard Book of Spells_.

            "Terribly sorry, I thought you were someone else," the shorter witch said, drawing Orla's attention back.

            "That's fine," Orla assured her, trying to inch her way over to the door.  She was forestalled when the woman put a companionable arm around her and led her over to a seat.  The badger growled at her, then went back to cushion shredding.

            "We forgot to introduce ourselves earlier," the witch was saying.  "I'm Huff le Puff, and my partner is Rave'n'claw."  She bowed, an impressive feat considering that she was sitting down.

            "Nice to meet you," Orla said, looking around for any way out.  This close, she noticed that the flesh around Huff's neck was a mass of bruise tissue.  She didn't like to think of what those bruises could have come from.

            "I really have to be going now," she said decisively, getting up.  "Maybe I'll see you again, Miss Huff, but—"

            She didn't get a chance to continue.  Huff lifted her off the ground by her collar, despite the fact that Orla was at least two inches taller than her.  Orla found herself at wandpoint for the second time in five minutes.

            "I am _not_ Huff," the woman growled.  Orla squeaked in terror.  Had she thought that this woman was as bad as Arane?  She'd been wrong.  Huff was worse.  At least Arane hadn't been allowed to physically abuse her.

            "If you must call me anything," she continued.  "Then I am le Puff.  Do you understand?"  She punctuated each word with a sharp shake.  Orla's teeth clicked together on her tongue and she tasted blood.

            "Y-y-yes," she managed in between shakes.

            Le Puff stared at her, her lips drawn back from her teeth.  Her breath rasped in and out angrily.  The bruises on her neck were livid.  I'm going to die, Orla thought, nearly incoherent with fear.  She was going to be killed by a madwoman on her way to Hogwarts.

            "You can't kill her, Huff," the other witch interrupted, tearing another page from her book.  "She's Canon."

            This seemed to mean something to le Puff, for Orla was released suddenly.  She landed with a bone jarring thud on the compartment floor, where she huddled gasping and shaking.  To her surprise and annoyance, le Puff didn't proceed to decapitate her partner for calling her 'Huff'.  It canceled out the immense gratitude that she felt for Rave'n'claw, especially when the witch added:

            "If you need to teach her a lesson, then just remove a limb or two."

            Le Puff turned to examine the trembling Orla with contempt.

            "Not worth it," she said.  "Now get out, Quirke-child.  We have plans to lay and people to kill."

            Orla was nearly out the door when le Puff's voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

            "If you tell anyone of what you've heard here it won't matter whether you're Canon or not, the only part of you anyone'll find will be your left foot."

            Orla hurried away, shivering.

            She was so busy looking out for anyone else who wanted to drag her into their compartment that she didn't look in front of her until she collided with someone else.  She rebounded and managed to catch hold of a door handle to steady herself on.  The person she'd run into didn't seem to have even wobbled.

            "Sorry, sorry!" Orla gasped, fighting for balance.  She fully expected the other witch to whip out her wand and curse her into oblivion, it would have been right in keeping with the rest of the day.  Instead, the witch bounded up to her, smiling broadly to reveal a mouth full of perfectly white, even teeth.

            "Oh, don't worry!!" she chirruped.  "I used my telekinesis to keep myself up!!  I'm Loreala Emrythell Fallingstar!  Who're you?!?!"

            Orla winced.  You could just _hear_ the multiple punctuation.  What was it with last names nowadays? she wondered.  First Jared and now Lore—Lolli—Loelea… well, whatever her name was had strange surnames.  Perhaps it was some sort of fad.

            "I'm Orla Quirke," she said, holding out a hand.  The proffered hand was pumped enthusiastically.

            "It's so exciting to be going to Hogwarts!!" Lor-whatever squealed.

            Orla stared.  The witch looked a bit too old to be a first year, at least judging by her balloon-like breasts.  Shouldn't she be used to Hogwarts by now?

            "Oh, I'm a transfer student from Salem Witch's Academy!!  They decided to send me over to Hogwarts because my grades were so good!!!!" Lor-something laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder.  Orla's eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.  She hadn't said anything out loud, yet the witch had answered her question.

            "Yup!!" she agreed.  "I can read minds!!  Isn't it neat!?!?"

            Orla edged away.  She didn't like the idea of someone mucking around in her head without her permission.

            "But I'm far too moral to use it for evil!" Lor-whatchamacallit protested, her vibrant amethyst eyes shining.

            "That's… nice," Orla said.  "I have to get back to my compartment now.  We're probably getting close to Hogwarts."

            At that news the transfer student squealed ear-piercingly, her eyes turning misty silver.  Orla turned away, shuddering.  This was just too weird for her.  Lor-thingy ignored her reaction and skipped off down the hall.  Orla watched her go, eyes wide as she recognized the direction the witch was running in.  She thought briefly of calling out a warning, then remembered le Puff's threat and remained silent.

            Sure enough, the witch was yanked into a compartment as she ran passed.  Orla caught a high shriek, and what sounded like le Puff screaming "One exclamation point!  _One!_" before the compartment door slammed shut and all was quiet once more.

            Orla headed back to her compartment, feeling much more cheerful.

            She had nearly made it back to her compartment, mercifully without meeting anyone else, when the train slowed and finally stopped.  _What the…?_ Orla thought.  _We can't be at Hogwarts yet._

            The lights went out.

            She jumped when the compartment door in front of her slid open, and nearly screamed when she was pulled inside.

            "Oh good, you're back," Alexis whispered.  Both she and Jared had changed into their robes while Orla was gone, and their faces were very pale above the black fabric.

            "Do you have any idea of what's going on?"

            Orla shook her head.  "I know we're not at Hogwarts yet," she said.

She rubbed her forearms and tried to keep her teeth from chattering.  It was _cold_ in here, she didn't know why she hadn't noticed before.  Her tongue stung miserably where she'd bitten it.

            "Do you know where we could go for help?" Alexis asked.  They had all been speaking in soft tones instinctively, Orla noticed, as if afraid to attract something's notice.

            Before Orla could reply, the compartment door slid open.

            They all turned to look at the new arrival.  _It's a gnome,_ Orla thought nonsensically.  _It's a gnome standing there, and when we turn it'll leap up and bite off my nose._

            It wasn't a gnome.  It was a tall figure, hooded and cloaked so that nothing could be seen underneath.  As they stared at it silently, it drew in a rattling breath.  Orla squeezed her eyes shut and reeled backwards until she fell into a seat.  Jared moaned in terror behind her, but Orla didn't hear him, she was locked in her mind.  Images of gnomes and gnashing teeth, and Arane's sneering face merged into one.  For the second time, she was lifted up by le Puff, and she felt the excruciating pain of teeth sinking into her toe again.

            Then the figure was gone from the doorway.

            Orla lay draped over the seat, bringing her scattered thoughts together slowly.  She didn't want to think, it was much nicer just to lie here and look up at the ceiling.

            "What was that?" Jared groaned.

            Orla came back to herself with a jerk.  She sat up, nearly braining herself against the wall.

            "A dementor," she said.  It came out as a croak, her mouth and throat were so dry.  "A dementor," she tried again.  There, that sounded more normal, if a bit trembly.

            The lights came back on.  Orla blinked around herself owlishly.  Alexis was sitting stiffly with her hands clenched together in her lap, her face white except for two hectic blotches of color high on her cheeks.  Jared had wedged himself into a corner and was staring at everything with overbright eyes, his knees drawn up to his chest.

            "A nazgûl," Alexis breathed, ignoring what Orla had said.  A bit more life came into her face.  "The Witch King of Angmar."

            "No," Orla said patiently.  "That was a dementor.  My aunt told me about them."  No need to mention that Arane had also threatened to send Orla to them as a present if she misbehaved.

            Alexis shook her head.  "I know a Black Rider when I see one.  It must have used the Black Breath on us, though I don't know why we're not sleeping now."

            Orla closed her eyes, counted to ten, and didn't burst into tears or start screaming.  If it comforted Alexis to believe that the dementor had been a nose-ghoul, then fine.  At least she didn't look like she was about to collapse anymore.

            They arrived and unloaded at Hogwarts soon after that without seeing anything else out of the ordinary.  Orla, after some thought, left Gnasher with her trunk.  She only hoped that nobody woke him up, he still insulted anyone who went near him.  Instead of training him out of cursing, Orla had only been able to improve her jarvey's grammar, which if anything made him worse.  Before at least it had been hard to understand what the creature was talking about, even if you could get the general gist of it.

The sight of Hogwarts lake distracted Orla from fussing over Gnasher.  She had been raised surrounded by wonders of the wizarding world; a few sparkly parlor tricks didn't impress her.  But Hogwarts, looming above her with its spiraling turrets and arches, hundreds of windows glowing golden, made her ooh and aah and crane her head back to gape like the most ignorant of Muggles.  Even Jared stopped trying to look cool and untouchable and gawked at the sight.

            At the direction of an exceptionally large man, Orla piled into one of the boats at the lake shore, along with Alexis and Jared.  She tried not to stare too much at the man directing them.  He looked like an ogre, an exceptionally hairy one.  The fleet of boats set sail for the castle with a jerk.  Orla clung to the side of hers, looking nervously down at the opaque surface of the lake.  It looked very cold.  She shivered and jerked her gaze away.

Here she had to bite back a laugh.  Jared had perched himself at the prow of the little boat and struck what he probably thought was a heroic pose, with his hair ruffling back in the wind.  He looked both pompous and very cold, in his fishnet and leather.

            This effect was rather ruined as he got smacked in the face by the curtain of ivy they passed through, entering a tunnel beneath the castle, while everyone else prudently ducked.  The ships docked at the far end of the tunnel, where it let out into a small underground harbor.  Slipping and tripping over the stones at the shore's edge, Orla and her companions helped each other out without getting too soaked in the process.  Alexis was particularly careful to keep her book dry.

            Huddling together like sheep, they and the other first years were ushered by the hairy man up to the front doors of the castle.  He raised his fist to knock, and nearly ended up braining the woman who opened the door.

            "Really, Hagrid," she snapped, looking over the clump of first years with a small frown, "_must_ you make everything so difficult?"


	5. Namecalling

            You may thank Lady Ebony for the (relatively) swift arrival of this chapter.  Nothing gets me wanting to write like a good dose of criticism.  Incidentally, thank you for reminding me about the disclaimer – it was a foolish mistake to have made.

Chapter Four:  Namecalling

            The frowning woman gestured to Orla and her fellows sharply, then turned around and walked away quickly.  Not sure of what else to do, Orla followed her, shooting nervous glances at Alexis and Jared every now and then.  They were led through a long hall, their shoes loud on the flagstones, and into a small room off of the main hall.  Orla could hear the voices of the older students faintly through the wall.

            Still glaring as though they had personally offended her, the woman faced them again.

            "Welcome to Hogwarts," she said, her steely stare saying the opposite.  Her tone was bored, the greeting had the sound of something recited many times by rote.  "I am Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, where you'll be spending the next seven years of your life learning the arts of wizardry and witchcraft.  In a few moments, you'll enter the Great Hall for the Sorting.

            "The Sorting is one of the most important events of your life at Hogwarts, for it will determine which of the four houses you will live with during your years here.  The houses are Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff, and each has their own noble history."

            Orla started at the names of the last two.  She knew the houses and their history, of course, it would have been hard to escape it, brought up in a wizarding household as she had been, but she hadn't connected the two strange witches with the Hogwarts houses before.

            "—and I'm sure that you'll be an honor to whichever house you join," McGonagall concluded.  "Now, please form a line."

            Orla absently fell into place between Alexis and Jared, more concerned with the mystery of the le Puff and 'Claw and their connection with the houses of Hogwarts.  She wasn't particularly worried about the Sorting itself, Theo had briefed her on what to expect.  Her friends weren't so lucky as to have an older wizard brother to allay their fears.

            "What do you think's going to happen?" Alexis whispered nervously, her eyes wide beneath her bottle-bottom glasses.

            "Will it hurt?" Jared asked with a gulp.

            Orla shook her head.

            "We just have to put on a hat," she said.

            They stared at her in disbelief.

            "It's true!" Orla whispered fiercely, trying not to draw the attention of the fierce McGonagall.  "My brother told me."  To her, this was all that was necessary to establish a fact as beyond doubt.  Alexis and Jared weren't so comforted.

            Further conversation was forestalled as McGonagall led them into the great hall.  Prepared as she was for the sight, Orla still gasped at the bespelled ceiling, which glowed softly silver like the fog surrounding the castle.  A few lonely stars shone through the thick mist.

            The reentrance of Professor McGonagall, carrying with her the stool and Sorting Hat, drew Orla's attention back to Earth.  She knew what to expect from the ceremony, unlike the unfortunate Muggle born, but she had worries that made mere ignorance pale beside them.  Those with Muggle parents didn't have to worry about getting into the right house – Orla did.  She quailed to think of Arane's reaction if she was placed in Hufflepuff or, dare she think it, Gryffindor.  Le Puff's treatment of her would seem the tenderest of caresses if Orla failed to get into a proper house.  Words, as Orla had learned to her detriment, could wound far more effectively than blows.  She gulped.

            She was shocked out of working herself into hysterics when a rip in the hat's brim opened and it began to sing.

_Ten score and many years ago,_

_When I was newly made,_

_The founders of this school still lived –_

_Their legacy shall not fade._

_There was sweet Helga of Hufflepuff,_

_Who loved those straight and loyal._

_Of strong and faithful temperament_

_Are those of Hufflepuff's soil. _

_And fair Rowena Ravenclaw,_

_Of spirit both clever and wise._

_Her chosen all know true from false,_

_Knowledge is their greatest prize._

_Then Godric from good Gryffindor,_

_Whose kind are strong and proud._

_No cruelty shall earn a Gryffindor's grace,_

_Their protests shall be loud._

_Sleek Salazar Slytherin was the fourth,_

_Who chose those with ambition._

_A Slytherin's cunning never fails,_

_Their drive knows no restriction._

_They made me to tell you where to go,_

_To look into your mind._

_So put me on, I'll sneak a peak,_

_And tell you what I find!_

            Orla clapped along with the rest of the crowd.  Being all but tone deaf and unable to carry a tune if her life depended on it, she didn't care much one way or another for the hat's song.  The rhyming had been nice though, she thought.  She always had liked limericks.  Alexis and Jared exchanged relieved looks over Orla's oblivious head.

            Professor McGonagall stepped forward again, this time carrying a scroll of parchment.

            "When I call your name, you will step forward and put on the Sorting Hat," she said.  "Altherson, Jason."

            A nervous looking boy with a shock of white-blond hair hurried over to the stool and placed the hat on his head, where it fell down around his shoulders.  A moment later, it screamed "GRYFFINDOR!"  Smiling shakily, the boy took of the hat and half ran to his new table, where the Gryffindor crowd cheered and clapped.  Orla gazed after him, curious.  He didn't look very brave or chivalrous.  She wondered if he really would speak out against any cruelty he saw.

            "Andrews, Wilfred," McGonagall barked.  Another boy stumbled forward, looking scarcely more collected than Altherson.  The hat sat on his head for nearly a minute before it shouted "HUFFLEPUFF!"  Andrews went to join his house, looking relieved.  Orla narrowed her eyes at his retreating back.  He didn't look particularly loyal, or hard working.  How strange.

            After the first few, the novelty of watching the Sorting Hat work wore off quickly.  Orla returned her attention to staring up at the enchanted ceiling and worrying about Arane's reaction.

            At least, until McGonagall called on a "Brown, Samuel."

            Nobody in the line moved.  The hall of students fell silent.

            "Brown, Samuel," McGonagall repeated.

            Slowly, Jared stepped forward, his face a crimson vibrant enough to match his glasses.  He walked over to McGonagall, ignoring the stares of the hundreds of students except for his unfading blush.  Beside Orla, Alexis dissolved into a fit of oddly choked coughing.

            McGonagall stared down at him, finally bending her head so that he could whisper.

            "Actually it's…" Jared began, and that was all Orla could catch.

            "I don't care what you think you name is, Mr. Brown," McGonagall snapped back.  "I have listed here a Samuel Brown to be Sorted.  If you are not he, then I would suggest that you return to your place in line."

            For a moment, Orla thought that Jared, or Samuel, or whatever his name was, was going to strike out at the professor.  He didn't, his blush never faded.  He stalked over to the stool with all the offended dignity of a cat and rammed the Sorting Hat on his head.

            "RAVENCLAW!" the hat yelled after a minute or two.  Jared-Samuel snatched the hat off and walked over to the Ravenclaw table, his shoulders hunched.

            Other than that, the Sorting went smoothly.  If, that is, one exempted Orla's growing case of nerves.  By the time Octagenatius, Ramona, and Periandrine, Sandrel were being Sorted, Orla felt like she was going to scream.

            "Quirke, Orla," McGonagall called at last.

            Propelled by a small push from Alexis, Orla staggered out of line before catching herself and walking over to the hat.  She had to resist the urge to turn tail and flee back to the boats and over the lake.  Mercifully, the Sorting Hat dropped over her eyes, blocking out the sight of all those awful, staring faces.

            _Hmm, _a little voice said in her ear.  At first she dismissed it as just her own thoughts, then she realized who it really was.  Theo had told her about how the Sorting Hat spoke, she just hadn't realized that it said more than the names of the houses and the Sorting song.

            _Are you finished thinking yet?_ the voice said.  _I need to look through your mind, and it's harder to do when you're cogitating so actively._  It sounded rather irritated.

            Obediently, Orla concentrated on the splintery feel of the stool beneath her fingers while the hat's voice muttered in her ear.

            _Not brave enough for Gryffindor, won't work hard enough for Hufflepuff… No cunning, so Slytherin's out._  It sighed, and she got the sense that it shook its head, for all that it didn't have one.  _Well, I guess that you're intelligent enough, _it said doubtfully.  _Better go to RAVENCLAW!_

            Blinking at the sudden light as the hat was removed from her head, Orla made her way over to the Ravenclaw table.  She was very careful not to sit next to Jared, whose scowling face and sullen silence had those by him inching away surreptitiously.  The silvery patch on the breast of her robes had already shifted to show the bronze-and-blue of Ravenclaw.  She looked around herself with interest and some trepidation, but relaxed at what she saw.  Ravenclaw was supposedly for the quick witted, but the people at the table didn't look any brighter than the rest of the student body.

            The rest of the Sorting passed quickly for Orla, who was too relieved that she'd gotten into a house that met with Arane's approval to pay attention to anything else.  The only time she took note was when Professor McGonagall called "Rivers, Alexis" up.  As soon as the hat touched the girl's head it shouted out "RAVENCLAW!"  Somehow, Orla wasn't terribly surprised.

            Alexis all but skipped over to the Ravenclaw table, still clutching her book.  Her face glowed with pride.

            "Isn't this exciting?" she whispered at Orla as she plopped down next to her.  "Think of everything we'll learn here!"

            "Er," said Orla.  Learning wasn't her highest priority, keeping out of trouble was.  She'd already had enough of the latter on the train to last her the whole school year.

            More conversation was forestalled as an old, silver-haired wizard stood up.  Orla recognized him as Albus Dumbledore only from the back of the Chocolate Frog cards she collected.  Her family had never been terribly interested in politics.

            "Welcome!" he boomed, smiling at them all.  "Welcome to another—"

            The fifth or sixth year boy on Orla's right yawned and leaned backwards, closing his eyes.  Across the table, a pretty oriental girl and a tall boy were discussing quidditch moves quietly.  A few seats away, another pair of students were playing hangman.  Orla took her cue from them and tuned the headmaster out.

            She must have fallen into a light doze, for she started slightly when the hall burst into applause for a shabby looking man at the high table.

            "Who's he?" she asked Alexis while she clapped politely.

            "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Alexis said.  "Really, weren't you listening?"

            'No' didn't seem a very good answer, so Orla settled for silence.  Alexis didn't notice, she was too busy beaming around at all and sundry at the Ravenclaw table.

            Another professor was introduced, the same loutish man who had directed them on the boats, and then the talking was mercifully done with.  The golden plates in front of them filled with food, and Orla dug in with a will.  The excitement of the train ride only served to sharpen her appetite.

            She listened to Alexis with half an ear as she ate.  Her friend – somehow, through some inexplicable process she seemed to have become friends with the girl, at least in title – had a very one track mind.

            "Isn't it so exciting to be in Ravenclaw?" Alexis asked, her eyes shining, her mouth half full of potatoes.

            "Hm," Orla said, paying more attention to the food on her plate.

            Another minute passed.  "Can you believe we got into Ravenclaw?" Alexis squeaked.

            "Er," said Orla, trying to get a bit of toffee out from between her teeth.

            All in all, she was most grateful when the food melted magically away from their plates and the Ravenclaw prefects stood up and called for the first years to follow them.  There was only so much excited babble from Alexis that she could take.

            They were led through a confusing twist of halls and staircases, all lined with a plethora of exceedingly talkative portraits.  Most of the pictures in Orla's house were far too cowed by her aunt's presence to talk much.  It was enough to turn even Orla's head, especially when the staircases began to shift around.

            The prefects seemed to know where they were going, and at last they arrived in the library.  Or at least, Orla assumed it was the library.  It might have been all the books that led her to that assumption.  The prefects stopped them in front of the S-U section of magizoology.

            "This is the door to your common room," the female prefect announced.  "If you forget where it is, just ask Madame Pince, the librarian.  The password will be 'Polaris'.  If you forget _that_, you're stuck outside until one of your housemates comes along.  But you're Ravenclaws, right?  You're supposed to have good memories."  There was a small rustle of nervous laughter from all except for Alexis, who nodded fervently.  Orla shook her head, despairing of her friend.

            Turning to the bookcase, the prefect once again said the password.  The bookcase slid downwards, until only its first inch or two stood upwards, providing the first stair to an upwards spiraling staircase.

            Orla's mouth fell open as she looked at the tower.  She could have sworn that there wasn't room for a staircase inside the bookshelf.  It wasn't against a wall, and the aisle behind it had looked perfectly normal, from what she had seen as they'd walked passed.  Raised among wizarding parents, she only gaped unbelievingly at the stairs before shrugging, accepting, and beginning to climb.

            They climbed until Orla's calves were screaming with the effort.  Her stomach weighed heavily in her body from all of the food she'd eaten at the feast.  She was at the point of sitting down and demanding a rest stop when they emerged from a hole in the floor into the Ravenclaw common room.

            "Welcome," the female prefect said, gesturing grandly around the room, "to the Rookery."


	6. Canon

I've been a very sorry person lately, with all possible interpretations of said phrase.

I'm very sorry to anyone who actually thought that Huff le Puff was a nice, sane person.  She's not.

I'm sorry to anyone whose characters resemble those le Puff brutally maims, tortures, and slaughters.  Actually, on second thought I'm not sorry about that.  Any author who writes such a character should be sorry.  Bad author.  No biscuit.

I _am_ sincerely sorry about the gap between this update and my last.  Life's been rather busy lately.

Concrit. appreciated, as always.  Thank you bbhtryoink for pointing out timeline errors.

Chapter Five: Canon

            "Please, come in Miss Snape," Dumbledore said, stepping aside so that the petite young woman could walk into his office.  Aurora Snape sashayed past him, her crystal blue eyes, inherited from her Malfoy mother, twinkling.

            "I'm sure that your father will be in shortly," Dumbledore said, seating himself at his desk.

            True to the headmaster's prediction, Snape walked through the door, scowling.  When he saw his daughter, his expression underwent a complete transformation.  A broad grin spread across his face, and he stepped forward, beaming.  Father and daughter embraced.

            "I'm so sorry that you couldn't have come sooner," Snape gushed.  "It was just too dangerous."

            Dumbledore dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his sleeve.  Such a reunion was really just too touching.  After a minute, he cleared his throat loudly.

            "Now we need to Sort you, Miss Snape," he said.  "Though I suppose it doesn't matter which house you belong to since you will, of course, have your own set of rooms."  He looked a bit puzzled, then shook his head.  When he looked up again, there was nothing but glazed good cheer in his eyes.

            He handed the Sorting hat, which had been sitting on his desk, to Aurora.  With a small moue of distaste for its tattered and dirty interior, she put it on her flawless head.  So delicate and small was she that the brim slipped down all the way to her shoulders.

            For a moment, all was quiet.  Snape and Dumbledore leaned forward expectantly.  Then Aurora began to shriek.

            Around her neck, the hat constricted, growing relentlessly tighter in spite of her franticly tugging hands.  Her screams grew more and more muffled and desperate, until at last they cut off mid-howl.  A small trickle of blood oozed down from the hat's brim, vivid against Aurora's pale skin.

            In the shadows at the doorway, a pair of yellow eyes sparkled gleefully.

            Dumbledore and Snape stared.

            As Aurora slumped back, the room gave an infinitesimal jolt before settling into focus.  Dumbledore shook his head.  Snape rubbed at his eyes fitfully.

            "Did you call me for something, headmaster?" he asked.

            A soft flump interrupted Dumbledore's answer, as Aurora's body faded into nothing but a foul smelling vapor and the Sorting hat tumbled onto the chair she had been sitting on.  He got up and picked up the old hat gently, as one would handle an infant.  _I wonder what that was doing there?_ he wondered before turning back to Snape.

            "Oh… yes, of course," he said, recovering some of his normal energy.  "Do you have everything that you'll need for Professor Lupin's wolfsbane potion?"

            Snape's face tightened, he looked almost as if Dumbledore had struck him.

            "Of course, headmaster," he said, his tone colorless, his words clipped.  "Is that all?"

            "Yes, yes," Dumbledore said, settling back behind his desk.  "Just… Severus?"

            "Yes?"  Snape stopped, halfway out the door.

            "Try not to be too hard on him, will you?"

            Snape's lips tightened into an almost-sneer.  He walked out without answering, just missing Huff le Puff as she dashed down the stairs.

            "You're late," Argus Filch snapped.

            Rave'n'claw giggled apologetically.  Huff le Puff just yawned.

            "We had to take care of a bit of… business first," she said.  She rubbed at her throat fitfully, only stopping when she tore the scabs away completely.  The healing scratches itched maddeningly.  Pain, to her, was preferable to that awful prickling.

            "We have more serious issues on our hands than just a Sue or two," Filch said, collapsing gracelessly into a seat.  Rave'n'claw plopped down at his feet, staring adoringly into his grizzled face.  Huff le Puff remained standing.  She paced the small, dreary room like a caged beast.

            "What could be more serious than those _creatures_?" she spat.  "They confined us, they made us _mortal_!  They forced us into _bodies_!How could you—"

            "I think I've found Slytherin and Gryffindor," Filch interrupted.

            Huff le Puff shut up, uncharacteristically stunned.

            "No," she said.  Her voice cracked.  "Impossible.  They're dead, the lucky bastards."

            "They're much worse off than you.  They can't even move."

            She threw her head back and laughed raucously.

            Rave'n'claw ignored them both.  She was busy petting Mrs. Norris and humming the Ode to Joy to herself.

            Filch waited patiently until le Puff's laughter had passed.

            "Where are they?" she asked at last.

            "That's the problem," Filch admitted.  "They're somewhere in the castle, I know that.  My sweet has smelled them here."  He looked down dotingly on Mrs. Norris, firmly ensconced in 'Claw's lap.  "But she can't find exactly where they are.  There seems to be some sort of misdirection spell on them.  Perhaps the Fidelius charm.  I was hoping that you might be able to pinpoint their location."

            Le Puff resumed her pacing, hands clasped behind her back.

            "We'll find them," she said at length.  "Don't you worry about that.  We're very good at finding things, aren't we, Rave?"

            Rave'n'claw muttered a reply in what sounded suspiciously like ancient Sanscrit.

            Before Huff le Puff could take advantage of Filch's confusion to continue her diatribe against Sues, she was thrown backwards by the large amount of air displaced by the person who had suddenly appeared.  Her head hit the ground with a thump.  The world went gray before her eyes and her stomach tried to force its way out of her throat.  Le Puff reached over with a hand that seemed strangely disconnected from her body, grabbed some part of herself and dug her nails in.  The pain brought the world back into sharp focus, and she began the laborious process of hoisting her protesting body to its feet.

            Across the room, Rave'n'claw staggered upright, her normally vague blue eyes bright and sharp with anger.

            "You're… y'not supposed to app'rate or… or… or disapp'rate within… within the Hogwarts grounds," she slurred.  She reached for her wand and pointed it at the lone upright figure in the center of the room.

            "Who," returned the newcomer, his voice reeking of polite disgust, "are you?"

            Huff le Puff let out an almost feline shriek of rage and launched herself at him.

            He spun around at the sound, a movement so impossibly quick and graceful that it looked serpentine rather than human.  His wand was in his hand and leveled at the leaping le Puff a second later.  Huff le Puff suddenly found herself flying across the room in the opposite direction, propelled by the invader's spell.  Her head hit the floor again, and she moaned sickly.

            "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you both," the boy said, splitting his attention between le Puff and Rave'n'claw.

            One of Huff le Puff's eyes shot wide open, the other refused to come above half mast.  She attempted to launch herself off of the floor in a single move that would send her foot through the intruder's midriff and her fist through his throat.  Her body responded with an immense bolt of pain and a feeble twitch of her left hand.  Huff le Puff's mind screamed angrily, her thoughts like yellow and black lightning.

            The man's foot descended on her neck, sending fresh shocks in through the scratches there.  A hand roughly grabbed her chin and turned it upwards, ignoring her squall of pain and anger.  Huff le Puff found herself looking at an arrogant, altogether too handsome face above a Slytherin tie.  A wandtip descended until it was just over her left eye, almost blocking her sight of the man.

            "I want an explanation.  Now," he said, almost pleasantly.  "If I don't get one very soon, I'll take out your left eye.  If you still won't talk, I'll take the right.  If that doesn't get you going, then—"

            But he didn't get a chance to say what he was going to do then, because Huff le Puff had grabbed his leg and pulled it towards her, knocking him off balance.  He went down with a shout.  Huff le Puff felt his wand scrape the bony ridge above her eye before he hit the ground. She grinned savagely, eyes manically wide and bloodshot as she ignored her protesting muscles and forced herself to move.  Her foot landed squarely on the man's chest, knocking the breath out of him.  He didn't have the chance to regain it; Huff le Puff locked her fingers around his neck and began to squeeze.

            "Le Puff!  Stop!"

            Filch's order barely penetrated her anger, and even then it was something far away and easy to ignore.  She throttled the man with great pleasure.  He'd hurt her, or at least tried to.  How _dare_ he hurt her?

            "He's _Canon_, you fool!  Don't you know that he's—oh, screw it."

            There was a ringing thud as the base of Filch's mop collided with le Puff's much-abused skull.  Huff le Puff didn't know that.  She just knew that suddenly the world had gone gray and faint again.  Her fingers loosened, and the man shoved her off, coughing and rubbing at his throat in an unconscious imitation of his would-be-killer.

            "You're going to suffer for that," he informed a poleaxed Huff le Puff when he'd struggled to his feet.

            "No, Mr. Riddle, she won't," Filch said, leaning on his mop.

            "Are you going to stop me?" Riddle asked.  He sounded genuinely curious, not threatening.  Not that the two were terribly different with Tom Riddle.

            "No.  But without her you're unlikely to get back to your own time."

            Riddle looked between Filch and the bundle of dirty rags and matted hair that was Huff le Puff.

            "Why should I believe you?  How do I know that you three didn't bring me here, where or _when_ever here is?"

            "Ah, now that's a question Huff le Puff would be able to answer better than I," Filch said, pointing at the unconscious le Puff.  After a moment of looking embarrassed, he asked "Would you?  My magic's a bit… rusty."

            Riddle regarded her crumpled form with displeasure.  "Must we?" he said.  "She's so much more agreeable like this."

            "I thought you wanted an explanation," Filch snapped.

            "Fine, then.  _Enervate,_" Riddle said, pointed his wand at le Puff.

            Le Puff growled and threw herself at Riddle.  Filch's mop handle rather got in the way of that, and she was sent sprawling across the floor.

            "Stop acting like an animal, le Puff," Filch ordered.  "We've got company.  _Canon_ company, so play nice."

            Huff le Puff scrambled to her feet, the heel of one hand pressed against her throbbing head.  She looked around her blearily.

            "Where's Rave?" she demanded.

            "I left your friend, if that's who you're referring to, in that corner," Riddle replied, unperturbed.  He gestured to the far corner, where a huddled lump discernable as Rave'n'claw lay.  "Mr. Filch says that you have some answers for me."

            Huff le Puff shook her head slightly, considering and deciding against attempting to kill him again.  She was injured, he wasn't.  Besides, he _was_ Canon.  Strange how she hadn't noticed at first.

            "You're… Riddle, right?" she said, testing out the name.  "Going to become a Dark Lord and eventually…"  Canon, the same force that had supplied her with Riddle's name, froze her mouth before she could betray anything of his future.  That wouldn't do at all.

            "How do you know all of this about me?" Riddle asked, his eyes narrowing as he regarded Huff le Puff.  "This isn't doing much for my belief in your innocence, Mr. Filch."

            Filch dismissed le Puff knowledge with a wave of his hand.  "She can't help it any more than the other one can.  They were… born with it.  It's why they're so useful."

            Riddle didn't seem to believe that, and le Puff couldn't blame him.  Filch always had been a terrible liar.

            "You'd better convince me of that," Riddle said.  Huff le Puff bristled angrily.  _No one_ talked to Filch like that, not unless they were stupid.  Canon characters often were though, or so had been her experience.

            "Explain, le Puff," Filch said.

            "But it would be so much easier if we just kept him locked in a room somewhere until we'd solved this," she protested.

            "Explain, le Puff," Filch reiterated, folding his arms.

            Huff le Puff seated herself gingerly in a chair, taking care not to antagonize her body any more than necessary, and began.

            "You were brought here by a 'Sue—"

            "I beg your pardon?"

            "A 'Sue.  A Mary Sue."  When he continued to look insuperably annoyed and ignorant, she sighed and explained.  "Powerful, devious creatures who twist Canon – the natural order of things – to suit their whims.  This includes making ugly people attractive, changing people's allegiances, or even yanking people out of their normal timeline, like you."  If Riddle noticed how le Puff's voice changed when she recited, letting Canon flow through her and supply her directly with words, he didn't mention it.

            Instead he just asked, "And just why would a… 'Sue' want to bring me here?"

            "She probably thinks she's in love with you," Huff le Puff said sweetly, using her own voice again.  She smirked at Riddle's horror-struck expression.  "Don't worry," she reassured him.  "We'll… deal with her.  We're very good at dealing with Sues, aren't we Rave'n'—oh, right.  Never mind.  When the Sue who brought you here dies, you should return to your own timeline.  Theoretically."

            Riddle regarded her skeptically.  "Theoretically," he mused, sitting on a chair and resting his hand on a fist.  "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

            Huff le Puff shrugged.  "That's your problem.  My specialty's killing, not reversing damage."

            "Your job's to protect Canon, le Puff, not just to kill," Filch reminded her sternly.

            "Oh, yes.  That too," Huff le Puff agreed hastily.

            Riddle watched this exchange with narrowed eyes.

            "Well, then," he said at length, crossing his arms.  "How exactly do you kill a… 'Sue'?"

            Huff le Puff smiled in her lopsided, maniacal way, and explained.  After a while, Riddle began to smile too.


	7. Knitting

I'm worried that switching between le Puff's and Orla's viewpoints within the same chapter makes the story disjointed – what say you, oh readers?

Concrit appreciated, as always.

Chapter Six: Knitting

            "I'm Serenity Aramantha Malfoy-Snape-Potter, and if you know what's good for you you'll tell me how to get to the Slytherin dorms."

            Orla groaned.  She and Alexis were already late for Transfiguration, and now she was faced with another person with a name so complex it made a Gordian knot look simple.  She'd known the normalcy of her first weeks of school had been too good to last.

            "Could you repeat that?" Alexis asked.  She had produced a piece of parchment and quill from her bag, and had an inkwell balanced precariously on her forearm.

            "We don't have time for this, Alexis," Orla muttered out of the corner of her mouth.  Alexis took no notice.

            "Look," Orla said, stepping in front of her friend.  "We're Ravenclaws, not Slytherins.  We have no idea how to get down to the Slytherin dorms.  Go ask Professor Snape."

            Serenity tossed her thick, midnight hued hair over her shoulder and glared at Orla.  Her electric blue eyes blazed from within heavily mascaraed lashes.

            "I asked a question, and I expect to be answered, fool!" she snarled.

            Orla reconsidered her attempt at bravery and took a step back, getting ready to run if Serenity reached for her wand or made any threatening move.

            "Alexis!" she hissed, as Serenity stalked towards her, black-nailed hands closing into fists.

            "Gimme a second, I'm nearly—eep!"

            Orla pulled Alexis out of the way just in time as an all-too-familiar yellow and black blur tore past them and launched itself at Serenity.

            Ignoring Alexis' protests that this was _interesting _and she wanted to _see_, Orla streaked off in the opposite direction, dragging her protesting friend behind.  She didn't stop until they'd reached the Transfiguration classroom.

Two men and two women were standing over Serenity's bloody corpse.

            "Still here I see, Riddle," le Puff said.  "Must not be the one, then.  And here I was thinking she looked just your type.  Here's your wand back."

            She handed it to the younger man, ignoring the red smears it left across her palm.           "I am continually awed by your radiant personality and amazing people skills," Riddle said dryly, holding his wand delicately between two fingers with his arm extended as far from his body as possible.

            Huff le Puff snorted and nudged at Serenity's body with a toe.

            "You've gotten bloodstains all over my nice, clean floor," Filch snapped.  "Wands, le Puff, are used for _magic, _not brutal, physical assault."

            Le Puff shrugged.

            "Where's the fun in that?"

            She bent down and seized Serenity's head by its luxuriant raven (and by now tangled and blood-matted) tresses.

            "You have a choice," she said.   "Either you can tell us what we want to know and I'll let Riddle kill you quickly with _magic_, or you can be stubborn and idiotic and I'll hand you over to Rave'n'claw who will kill you slowly and titter idiotically while she does so."

            Serenity's eyelids flickered and she groaned weakly.

            "I see," le Puff said, stepping back and released her hold on Serenity's hair so that the girl's head thumped down on the cobblestones.  "Rave, she's all yours.  If you need us, scream."

            As the other three moved off, Rave'n'claw bounded forward, giggling happily.

            "You're all leaky!" she exclaimed, crouching by the prone Serenity.  Serenity moaned and tried to crawl away.

            "No, don't go, I want to play!" 'Claw protested.  She seized Serenity's arm, leaving long gashes where her nails dug in.

            Serenity began to cry, leaving long trails of mascara down her face.

            "You can't kill me!" she sobbed, laying a hand across her brow.  "I haven't found my true love yet.  I'm too beautiful and angsty to die!"

            Rave'n'claw watched with interest, head cocked slightly to one side.

            "I don't want to kill you, oh heavens no!" she said, sliding forward on her knees until she her nose was nearly touching Serenity's.  "I just want to play with you!"

            "Wh—wh—" Serenity tried.

            "Tag, you're it!"

            Rave'n'claw tapped Serenity lightly and sprang to her feet like Tigger on crack.  She sprinted away, sniggering madly.  Serenity staggered upright, hand clapped to her throat where 'Claw's nails had torn it out in her 'tap'.  She took one step, another, and then collapsed in a pool of her own blood where she twitched once and lay still before dissipating into a puff of smoke.

            "Who was that?" Alexis demanded as soon as they reached their seats.

            Orla prodded the stubborn quill she was supposed to be transfiguring into a toothbrush and pretended not to hear.

            "Or_la_!"

            "Do you have a problem, Miss Rivers?" McGonagall asked, appearing behind Alexis in that startling and inexplicable way teachers do.

            "Er…no, Professor, sorry," Alexis muttered, going red.

            "Then continue your assignment _alone_, if you would be so kind," McGonagall said, moving away to put out the desk a Hufflepuff boy had managed to light on fire.

            Orla dared to think that she'd be safe from Alexis' questions, at least until the end of class, when the other girl surreptitiously slid a note over to her.  Against her better judgment, Orla opened it.  '_Well?_' it read.  She crumpled the note and shoved it in her pocket, pointedly ignoring Alexis' attempts at eye contact.

            She didn't count on Alexis' persistence.  Outside class, Alexis cornered Orla before she could escape to lunch.

            "Who was that person, Orla?" she demanded.  She pulled them into a small wall niche out of the way of traffic.  "And don't you try escaping again."

            Orla resigned herself to the inevitable.  If she'd learned nothing else from her first few weeks at school, it was that Alexis' curiosity, once aroused, could not be sidetracked.

            "Which one?" she asked, sagging against the wall.

            "Don't try and worm out of it."

            "I'm _not_.  Which person?  We met two," Orla pointed out.

            "That Serenity person, of course.  She's been the fifth relative of Professor Snape we've seen since school began," Alexis said, waving the list of Serenity and her brethren's names on it in front of Orla's nose.  "Unless the Professor has a hidden, turbulent, passionate youth we know nothing about, I just can't imagine him propagating so many impossibly beautiful relatives.  Why, who else was there?"

            "No one," Orla said quickly.  "Now I'm hungry, let's get lunch."

            She darted back into the hall before Alexis could say anything else.  Alexis' hand around her forearm stopped her from getting more than a few steps.

            "Who's 'no one'?" Alexis asked.

            "Nobody important, probably just a student," Orla said quickly.  Too quickly, she knew immediately, when a steely glint all too reminiscent of Arane entered Alexis' eyes.

            "Why are you so uptight about this?  Is it someone dangerous?  We could tell the Headmaster…"

            "No!" Orla said.  The last thing she wanted to do was tell Dumbledore.  That might bring her to le Puff's attention again.  Orla was quite happy being forgotten by _that_ particular person.

"Fine, I'll explain," she capitulated.  Knowing Alexis, if she didn't find out the truth she _would_ tell the Headmaster, just to make Orla sorry.  "Let's just get some food and we can take it to…" she cast around briefly for a private place to eat.  "We'll take it outside."

            After a brief foray to the Great Hall for food, they hurried outside, where Orla had ample time to regret her choice of location.  October was bitingly cold at Hogwarts, though at least this meant the grounds were as abandoned as Orla could have wanted them.

            She and Alexis settled beneath a tree with their makeshift repast.

            "The other person is…"  She tried to think of a way to describe Huff le Puff from her few (and thankfully brief) meetings.  "Well, her name's—"

            Above their heads, a branch cracked, dumping a swearing yellow and black bundle between them.  A head emerged from the tangle of clothes and limbs, and then the whole mess resolved itself into a person.

            "—Huff le Puff," Orla finished faintly.  Her mind gibbered and tried to run, cower, and scream all at once, with the result that she stayed right where she was.

            Huff le Puff stood up and brushed a few stray twigs off of her robes.

            "Hello, Quirke.  Haven't you died yet?" came her friendly greeting.

            While Orla whimpered, Alexis in all innocence engaged le Puff in conversation, asking: "What were you doing in a tree?"

            Le Puff glanced down and seemed to consider and dismiss Alexis as not worth the effort of disemboweling.

            "Trying to catch a squirrel," she said, stepping away from the girls.

            "Why?" Alexis asked, ignoring Orla's frantic hand gestures to shut up.

            "To eat," Huff le Puff said, not smiling.

            "Oh."

            Orla's mind kicked back into gear, and she shot to her feet, tugging Alexis along with her.  She shoved a piece of bread that had survived le Puff's descent into her pocket.

            "It's been really swell, but we've got to go now, so good-bye!" she squeaked.

            "Don't go," le Puff said, stepping in front of Orla so that she had the choice of walking into le Puff or stopping.  "I want to talk to you, Quirke.  And you too…"  She squinted in Alexis' direction.  She cut off Alexis' attempt to answer with a sideways motion of her hand.  "Don't tell me, it's… it's…"

            Le Puff paused, looking bewildered.  "Funny," she said after a moment.  "I can't seem to find your name.  That's odd; you don't _look_ like a Sue."

            She walked around Alexis, who stood stock still, perhaps driven by some innate survival instinct.  Orla's hand crept towards her wand, but she stopped herself.  She couldn't imagine Huff le Puff being discomfited by Wingardium Leviosa or the other spells of its ilk that made up her repertoire.

            "Ah well.  I suppose I shouldn't judge a grimoire by its cover," le Puff said, thrusting her hands into her pockets.  "Your parents were probably something outlandish, and your secret powers will no doubt manifest themselves when you turn sixteen."

            "…huh?" Alexis managed.

            "You might want to step out of the way, Quirke," Huff le Puff said suddenly, her eyes fixed on Alexis.  "Otherwise you might get a bit…spattered."

            The hairs on the back of Orla's neck prickled, but before she could call out a warning to her friend, Huff le Puff hurled herself at Alexis.  Her hands came out of her pockets to reveal a very rusty (or… something; Orla didn't like to think about what else could have created that particular red-brown shade), long, and pointy knitting needle in each one.

            Alexis threw herself to the side just in time to avoid being speared in the throat.

            Not knowing what good it would do, Orla whipped out her wand and pointed it at le Puff.

            "Stop it, or I'll… I'll hex you into the next dimension!" Orla shrieked.

            Sensing an empty threat, Le Puff took no notice; she dashed after Alexis, who had regained her feet and was running for the castle.  Orla dared to think Alexis would get away when the girl tripped.  Huff le Puff was upon her in a flash, needles poised to stab.

            For a moment, Orla was torn between the desire to run away _fast_ before le Puff finished with Alexis and turned her attention back to Orla, and the knowledge that if she didn't do something Alexis would die a stabby death.  Loyalty won.  Cursing herself for it, Orla pointed her wand at le Puff and shouted "Wingardium Leviosa!"

            At the same moment, someone across the field screamed out "_Stupefy!_"

            For a wonder, both spells hit Huff le Puff.  She flew up several feet, then fell back to Earth with a bone rattling thump.

            Orla hurried over to Alexis, skirting the unconscious le Puff.  Alexis scampered to her feet, shooting anxious looks at her prone assailant.

            "So _that's_ why you didn't want to tell me about her," she said once she'd regained her breath.  "She's a proper menace!"

            Orla didn't have the chance to bask in the glow of being right, as the other person ran up.  He skidded to a stop, panting.

            "What in the world is going _on_ here?!" he demanded

            "_Jared?_" Orla exclaimed at the same time as Alexis screeched "_Samuel!_"

            Samuel-Jared glared at Alexis, brushing badly dyed hair out of his eyes.

            "I just saved your life," he said.  "The least you could do is call me Jared."

            Alexis looked like she was going to argue, then glanced again at le Puff and nodded.

            "Fine.  Thank you for saving my life, _Jared_."

            "You're welcome," he said, sticking his nose in the air.

            Further conversation and witty repartee (well, witty by an eleven-year old's standards) was averted as Huff le Puff moaned and began to stir, causing them all to jump and skitter away nervously.

            "Can we get out of here now?" Alexis asked, her voice squeaking.

            They hurried off, casting nervous glances over their shoulder.

            A few minutes later, Huff le Puff regained her feet and tottered off, clutching her head.  Her thoughts buzzed yellow and black like angry wasps, centering around the urge to kill and rend and tear.  She collapsed in a heap by the tree she'd fallen on Orla and Alexis from, and that was where the badger found her when it came looking an hour later.


	8. And the Plot Congeals

Concrit much appreciated; please point out any flaws you notice.  I'm particularly worried that I'm telling too much instead of showing – your opinions?

I'm also trying to involve Orla and co. with le Puff and her problems, but I'm concerned that it's coming off as forced.  What do you think?

Chapter Seven: And the Plot Congeals

            Further discussion had to be postponed until after their evening classes.  Orla spent the entire History of Magic in a high state of anxiety.  She expected Huff le Puff to burst through the door at any moment, ready to kill.

            The class passed without incident, though.  In fact, it was so without incident that Orla nearly fell asleep, lulled by Professor Binn's droning.  Only Alexis' foot coming down on hers stopped her from drifting off.

            "Do you think he's changed his lesson plan at all since he died?" Orla asked as they collected their things and walked back to the Rookery.

            "Probably not," Alexis said.  She stuck close to the wall as they moved, staring suspiciously at anyone who even looked their way.  Orla thought it funny, until she noticed that she was doing it as well.  Huff le Puff had that affect on people.

            They reached the Rookery without another run-in with le Puff, thankfully.  The closest they came to danger was when they met a Hufflepuff coming out of the library.  The sight of so much yellow and black nearly gave Orla a heart attack.

            Jared tore up the stairs moments after the girls had settled themselves in the common room and dragged another chair over to them.  He was nearly bursting with excitement over being involved in a scheme.  Orla glowered at him for it.  She was reminded far too much of conspirators, and whatever Alexis and Jared were planning she already knew she wanted no part of it.  Before she could escape to the dorms, Alexis pulled out a piece of paper and a quill.

            "So," she said, smiling altogether too cheerfully for someone who had nearly been murdered during lunch.  "What do we know about this Huff le Puff?"

            She absently reached out and grabbed Orla's sleeve, forcing her back into the seat she was attempting to evacuate.

            "Don't be an escapist Orla, it's unhealthy," she advised.

            Orla thought that tangling with le Puff was even more unhealthy, and in a lethally short term way.  She didn't bother saying so, though.  Alexis got obsessive like this on occasion.  Last week she'd been determined to enter the Forbidden Forest and talk to the centaurs.  Her latest craze would pass.  Orla could only hope it would be before she got her eyes gouged out with a pair of knitting needles.

            "Huff le Puff as in Hufflepuff?" Jared asked, eyebrows drawing together.

            Alexis considered the idea for a moment, then shook her head.  "I can't imagine what connection the two might have.  That woman's the opposite from every Hufflepuff I've met."

            Orla decided that if she had to participate she might as well make it worthwhile.  "That's not exactly true," she pointed out.  "She's crazy as a loon, but she certainly works hard.  And I daresay she's loyal to whatever cause it is she's working for."

            Alexis stared.

            "That makes a… twisted sort of sense," Jared admitted, trying to shove Gnasher off of his lap.  Gnasher gave up, slinking away after muttering something best left off paper, as it would have to be censored anyway.

            Alexis scribbled busily, then looked up, her forehead scrunching up in thought.

            "And speaking of her cause… what was it she called me?" she said.  "A stew?  No.  Spew?  That's not it…  Sue!  That's right.  She called me a Sue."

            "What's a Sue?" Orla asked for a moment.

            Jared opened his mouth, shook his head, and closed it again.  They sat around in stumped silence, and might have given up and left it at that if a soft giggle hadn't interrupted them.

            Rave'n'claw's head poked over the top of the staircase.  She looked around the room, then waved exaggeratedly to Orla and her companions and nimbly pulled herself up.

            "Oh no, not her," Orla muttered.

            "Sue?" 'Claw said, tilting her head to the side until it lay on her right shoulder.  "Wheresa Sue?  Le Puff went a-hunting, and she left poor Rave all alone."  Her voice took on the guttural overtones of le Puff's.  "Rave'n'claw's not strong enough to take on Sues, oh heavens mercy me no!  She might get killed like the others.  But _I _know the truth."  She tapped the side of her crooked nose.  Glaring around the common room, as if to make sure no one else was hidden in the shadows eavesdropping, she minced closer to the stunned trio and leaned towards them confidentially.  "_I can smell them, and they're veeeery close_," she whispered.  Jared's face contorted as his nose tried to close itself off at the smell of 'Claw's breath.  The stench hardly bothered Alexis and Orla, who'd both been exposed to le Puff.

            "Er," Orla said at last, when 'Claw leaned back on her heels and looked expectantly at them.

            Alexis sat up straight, looking suddenly galvanized.  "You know Huff le Puff?" she asked.

            Rave'n'claw bobbed her head enthusiastically.

            Orla shook her head equally vigorously, though for very different reasons.  She'd forgotten about the other witch she'd seen on the train until now, but she certainly hadn't forgotten 'Claw's desire to take off a limb or two.

            "What's she trying to do?" Alexis asked gently, ignoring Orla's vehement gestures.

            Rave'n'claw gave her a scornful look.  "Going to kill the Sues, of course," she said, snorting.  She settled more firmly on her haunches, bringing her arms up to her chest.  "Going to kill them all.  Make them pay," she affirmed.  Her smile put Orla in mind of a picket fence, complete with pointy tops.

            "And what's a Sue?"

            Rave'n'claw squinted at Alexis.

            "Why d'you want to know?" she said, looking almost sane.  Her eyes narrowed, and she hunched her shoulders suspiciously.  "Why should I tell you?  For all I know _you're_ a Sue."  She rose a bit, her fingers twitching.  Somehow Orla hadn't noticed how long and sharp her fingernails looked until now.

            But Orla remembered what le Puff had said: Alexis _didn't_ look like one, so… "She can't be, she's not beautiful enough," Orla said quickly.

            Rave'n'claw subsided as Alexis bristled slightly.

            "I don't think I should talk to you anymore," 'Claw said after a moment's thought.  "You might not be Sues, but you're probably in league with them, and le Puff doesn't like me mixing with the characters, oh no.  So good-bye."

            "Wait!" Alexis shouted, leaping up, but it was too late.  With unexpected speed, Rave'n'claw darted back down the staircase, giggling and making airplane noises.

            "She's even loonier than that other one," Jared said, looking slightly awed.

            Before Orla could argue with him a prefect stuck his head down from the dorms and told them to stop shouting and laughing like a bunch of Gryffindors.  They made a show of studying until he went back upstairs.  As soon as he'd left, books were shoved aside and all three leaned towards each other.  Orla, to her chagrin, found herself just as conspiratorial as Alexis and Jared.

            "So what do we know _now_?" Alexis demanded.

            But they soon realized that they didn't know a great deal more than they had to start out with.

            "Huff le Puff's out to kill all the Sues, and that's nice, but we don't know what a Sue _is_," Alexis said, glowering around the common room as if it was personally responsible for her ignorance.  "I've not seen the term in any of the textbooks or essays I've read, and…"

            Jared shifted in his seat.

            "Um... I think I know what a Sue is," he said, tentatively raising a hand.

            Alexis swiveled to stare at him.

            "And…?" she prompted.

            "If it's short for Mary Sue, that is.  Though I've mostly seen them referred to as Gary Stus, but I think the principle's the same, only with different names for males and femal—"

            "Just.  Get.  On.  With.  It," Alexis snapped.  Orla was surprised.  Normally Alexis was interested in theory.  Still, she supposed nearly being murdered by le Puff might have something to do with her impatience.

            "They're really beautiful, cool people with all of these special powers," Jared said, growing steadily more enthusiastic as he continued.  "Everybody loves them.  The only people who hate them are stupid, and prejudiced, and ugly.  I write stories sometimes, and people always say that my characters are Stus.  I don't get why people hate them so much."  He looked confused for a moment, then shook it off.

            Alexis leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers beneath her chin.

            "I think I have an idea of what's going on here," she said.

            "Feel free to enlighten the rest of us whenever you have the inclination," Orla said, leaning back as well.  She thought longingly of all the homework she could be getting out of the way if she wasn't embroiled in… well… whatever insane plot Alexis was planning.

            "You know that Gryffindor girl in our Potions class yesterday?" Alexis said without warning.

            "You mean the one with the purple stripes in her hair and that weird metal ball in her nose?" Orla asked.

            "It's a nose piercing, Orla, they're fairly common.  But yes.  Did you notice how she kept on staring at Snape and sighing?"

            Orla nodded, grimacing.  She'd been sitting close to the girl in question and had hardly been able to hear the professor speaking above the constant whooshing of air.

            "Don't you think that it's a bit odd that someone would obsess over Snape of all people?" Alexis said, gazing keenly at their faces.

            At first, Orla was inclined to laugh at the thought, but remembering the Potions class she had to reconsider.  Snape hadn't looked the same then, had he?  She couldn't quite remember.  Her memory seemed to have gone all vague and fuzzy between yesterday and tonight, like two images imperfectly aligned with each other.  In one, Snape was his usual greasy, cynical self, but in the other he was pale-skinned rather than sallow, and his nose wasn't the domineering hook she knew it was.  Just thinking about it was giving her a headache, as if the world had gone slightly out of focus.

            She shook her head and looked up, to meet Jared's equally confused eyes.

            "You're saying that the Gryffindor girl was a Sue, and that she somehow changed Snape?" Jared said.  "I don't believe you."

            Alexis smiled smugly.  "You don't have to believe _me_," she said, tapping out a rhythm on the arm of her chair, "your own memory's the only thing you have to believe."

            "But Sues are fictional!" he burst out.  "This is real life.  They don't exist!"

            She shrugged.  "I didn't believe in magic until I got my letter; I don't see how this is any different."

            Jared folded his arms and glared through his red-lensed glasses.

            "You have no proof," he insisted.  "Those two people, whoever they are, are utterly _mad_.  This is just some sort of delusion, and you're just as crazy as they are for believing it."

            Once again, Alexis' list came out of her pocket.  She waved it in front of Jared's face.

            "Look at this!" she hissed.  "Just _look_, will you?  Five people with the surname of 'Snape', three named 'Malfoy', and ten named 'Potter'.  Is that proof enough?"

            "Potter's a common name," Jared said, pushing the parchment away.  "Look in the phonebook and you'll find _dozens_ of Potters."

            "That's not true in the wizarding world," Orla put in.  "I only know of one family named Potter, and most of them're dead.  All except for Harry Potter, and he's an only child, not to mention famous.  My dad edited a book about him a few years back."

            "There, see?" Alexis demanded, shoving her list at Jared's nose again.

            "Even if there were such things as Sues in real life, what would you suggest doing about them?" Jared snapped.  "Huff le Puff and her friend seem to have the situation under control."  He seized Alexis' list and threw it in the fire, ignoring her outraged yelp.

            "You are probably the most willfully blind person I've ever _met_!" Alexis howled, nearly jumping up and down with rage.  "Don't you get it?  So long as there are Sues here, le Puff's going to stay and kill them, and her aim's obviously none too good, so lots of real people are going to die too.  Don't you care about anyone but yourself?"

            Orla didn't think this was a good time to say that yes, she did care more for her own intact skin than for a hypothetical person who might or might not be in danger from le Puff's madness.  Huff le Puff was like a natural disaster; you felt sorry for those caught in her path, but that didn't mean you were going to go hunt her down and try to stop her.  One might as well try to halt a hurricane.

            She didn't say anything, but something of what she felt must have showed on her face, because Alexis took one look at her and turned her back, nose in the air.

            "I give up on both of you," she said.  "Cowards."

            Jared stiffened, but Orla just nodded.  It wasn't news to her, she'd been told the same thing by Arane for quite a while, and in much more caustic form.  A piddling insult like 'coward' wasn't going to bother her.

            Jared wasn't similarly complacent.  He shot up from his chair as if pricked in a very tender region by something very sharp.

            "I'm no coward," he snarled.  "I saved your _life_ from that madwoman, how can you call me a coward?  I'm just living in this reality, not some fantasy world pulled out of my ass."

            "It's not fantasy!" Alexis snapped.  Oral looked hopefully at the staircase to see if the prefect was going to come down again and order them to bed, but nobody appeared.  Leaving didn't seem the best idea right now, either.  In the mood she was in, Alexis would probably tear strips from her hide or worse, get Orla to agree to whatever mad scheme she'd concocted.

            "Yet you still haven't come up with a plan of action," Jared said, leaning on a chair back in an ill-planned attempt to look cool and collected.  It didn't work; Orla could see angry red patches on his cheeks spreading, and his hands were balled into fists.

            Here Alexis paused, her righteous anger momentarily deflated.  "Well…" she faltered.  "Huff le Puff's here because of the Sues, right?  So what we have to do is get rid of the Sues and she'll go away to… to wherever."

            "And how are we supposed to do _that_?" Jared demanded.  "Get them all together and feed them poisoned tea and biscuits?"

            "N—" Alexis started to say, then she stopped, her eyes narrowing.  "You might be on to something there," she said at last.

            Jared groaned.  Orla couldn't help but agree with him.

            "Not with the poisoned food," Alexis assured them.  "But with getting them all together in one place."

            "At the risk of sounding like a broken record: how are we supposed to do _that_?" Jared asked.

            Orla tried to figure out what a broken document had to do with anything, but she was startled out of it by Alexis' answer.

            "We challenge their leader to a duel," she said simply, sitting back down and folding her hands in her lap.  Despite her demur posture, the smile on her face was anything but ladylike.  "From what you've said, I don't imagine a Sue would be willing to back down from any challenge, and they don't seem like the type to share power well.  There must be someone in charge, and that's the one we'll challenge.  We'll tell her to bring all of her supporters so that we can get rid of them all at once."

            Orla considered this for a moment, then realized the problem with the whole thing, a flaw so gargantuan it was overlookable in its vastness.

            "Um, Alexis?" she said.  "Have you thought about what you're suggesting?  We're first years, the most powerful spell we know is 'Incendio', and you're saying we should challenge the most powerful of a group of unusually powerful witches and wizards and… miscellaneous super-beautiful creatures?"

            Alexis' smile grew wider, if that was possible.

            "Oh, didn't I mention?" she said with an innocence so obviously feigned it made Britney Spears look earnest.  "_We_ won't be there to fight the Sues.  Huff le Puff and her merry gang will."

            Orla groaned and buried her head in her hands.


	9. Finding Slytherin

No, I don't like Sues.  How could you _tell_?  Was it the horrific murders or the overblown descriptions of shimmering eyes and flowing hair?

Chapter Eight: Finding Slytherin

            Filch was not pleased.  Normally Huff le Puff would have been more respectful, but with a hundred Mary Sues gnawing away at Canon she'd lost whatever tenuous hold on sanity she'd had to begin with.  It felt like she had a head full of ants making a nest in her brain.

            "I told you not to attack the students, le Puff," Filch said, folding his arms.

            Le Puff whirled around, staggering slightly.  Filch's words boomed and echoed in her head.

            "Didn't," she protested.  "Attacked a _Sue_."

            "Use proper grammar, le Puff.  You're just making it worse for yourself when you don't.  And while Miss Rivers might be an ill-mannered know-it-all who tracks mud on my clean floors regularly, she's a student, not a Sue."

            "Doesn't matter," she slur-snarled.

            "Yes it _does_.  If you can't tell the difference between the legitimates and the fakes, I'm going to have to take you off active duty until you've regained some common sense."

            Le Puff lunged at Filch, growling.  Filch didn't bother to move, as her attack sent her several feet to the left of him.  She lurched to her feet and stumbled towards him.  The scratches at her throat had begun to ooze blood again.  Sighing and shaking his head, Filch concentrated and clapped his hands together at chest height.

            Huff le Puff reeled back, shrieking, her hands raised as if to shield her eyes from some intensely bright light.  She tripped over one of the footstools in Filch's rooms and fell to the floor, where she cowered.

            After a while, she lifted her head, blinking cautiously.

            "Don't _ever_ do that again without warning me," she said.

            Filch shook his head silently, too winded to reply.  He tottered over to the footstool le Puff had fallen over and sat down.  His skin had gone a nasty grey, and large pouches had puffed up under his eyes.

            "I don't think you'll have to worry about that in the near future," he managed, still gasping slightly.  "Channeling like that isn't something one can do anytime one likes."

            Le Puff relaxed on the floor, more curious than concerned with Filch's weakness.  She worried a hole in the threadbare carpet with her fingers while she waited for him to recover.

            "Where're Riddle and 'Claw?" Filch asked after he'd gotten his breath back.

            Huff le Puff cocked her head to the side and considered for a moment.  
            "Riddle's… here," she said, as the Dark Lord-to-be walked through the door, wiping his hands off on a bit of cloth.

            "Slytherin dorms are clear," he said, with a smile that rivaled le Puff's in its sadism.

            Le Puff scowled at him, distracted from her growing gap in the carpet.  "It's no fair that he gets to work the Slytherins.  Hufflepuff _never_ gets any Sues," she complained.

            "Don't whine, le Puff," Filch sighed.  "You should feel lucky that Hufflepuff is less infested, otherwise you might have ended up like Gryffindor and Slytherin."

            "However they've ended up," le Puff said, but she stopped sulking.

            "Where's your little friend?" Riddle asked, settling down in the sturdiest of the chairs.  "Do I dare hope that she's run into more trouble in the Ravenclaw dorms than she can handle?"

            Huff le Puff bared her teeth at him before letting her eyes unfocus and _listening_ in that way she had.  The way that wasn't with her ears at all, but actually came from the remnants of Canon inside her.  This mortal body couldn't hold much of Canon, not nearly so much as when she'd been free, but it was good for this much at least.  The sounds of the room faded, and instead faint voices and impressions filled her mind from every corner of the castle, and beyond that Hogsmeade, and the entire wizarding world.  Most of them she ignored, sifting through them for the bright blue presence of Rave'n'claw.

            She couldn't find her.

            There was nothing wrong with her otherears, she knew that.  She could hear and feel everything _else_ she wanted, from Potter getting harangued in Potions to Dumbledore eating lemon drops and contemplating the clockwork badger on his desk.  Rave'n'claw just wasn't there.

            Her body, the hateful fleshy thing, pulled her back before she could search further.  She looked up, trying not to panic.

            "I can't find Rave," she said, catching Filch's eyes.  They didn't speak to each other, but their looks were quite eloquent enough.

            _This is just like the other time, she's gone and now I'm all alone, trapped in a body with no way out._

_            Don't be ridiculous, you're mistaken, she must be there, there aren't enough Sues to affect her that way, not in _Ravenclaw.__

_            I'm going to die, we're all going to die._

            Filch stood up, calling softly to Mrs. Norris.

            "Then we'll have to find her," he said.

            Le Puff laughed self-pityingly.

            "No point," she said, almost savoring the words.

            "Could _someone_ please tell me just what is going on here?" Riddle asked.  He was far too dignified to sound plaintive, but there was a certain amount of well-bred disgust in his voice.

            "No," le Puff said.  "There's absolutely no point."  But she stood up anyway and walked out the door, followed by Filch.  She'd only gotten a few steps when Riddle came out after them.  At her questioning glance, he smirked.

            "I'm hardly going to let you go gallivanting around the school alone.  Merlin knows what trouble you'll stir up, and I've always wanted an excuse to test out a few of my less… socially acceptable curses," he said.

            Huff le Puff bit her lips to keep their corners from twitching upwards.  She reassured herself with the knowledge that since 'Claw was dead (or worse), she'd soon follow.

            Filch crouched down on the flagstones to get to Mrs. Norris' level.  Neither cat nor human made a sound, but le Puff knew that they were talking.  Or maybe talking was the wrong word.  She'd always suspected it was rather like the way she and the badger communicated.  It wasn't telepathy, of course; telepathy wasn't possible here, unless you counted Occlumency and Legilimency, both of which were unreliable as far as communication was concerned.  Perhaps it would be most accurate to say that they reached an understanding of essences, and that this understanding allowed them to exchange certain perceptions and ideas.  Like the need to find a certain wayward guardian of Canon.

            However Filch did it, it didn't take long.  He stood back up, grimacing and holding his back, and Mrs. Norris took a quick sniff around and strolled off down a hallway confidently, as if to say that she would have gone that way without having been asked.  The humans (or whatever it was that le Puff had become) trailed after her hopefully.  Unlike a dog, Mrs. Norris didn't track with her nose to the ground.  She sauntered along, ignoring the people behind her, pausing occasionally to sniff at the air and rub her head against a suit of armor or a statue.

            It didn't take le Puff long to grow impatient with following the cat.  She started muttering threats after they'd passed the statue of Knorbert the Knuckleheaded for the third time.

            "You're cat's leading us a merry chase, Filch," she growled.  "I think she's lost.  And I'm going to die."  She added that last in hopefully, then slouched a bit more in disappointment when Filch didn't look suitably concerned and she didn't keel over.

            "She'll get there in her own time, le Puff," Filch said patiently.  "You can't coerce cats, they're their own law."

            "Which is why I've always hated cats," Riddle said.  "You can't command them to do anything they don't want to do.  Dogs are so much more obedient.  You can order them to go and bite an armed wizard and they'll wag their stupid little tails and do it.

            "Besides," he said to le Puff once it became obvious that Filch was ignoring him, "knowing the way your friend moves, she probably did pass through this hallway several times.  She's not the most… stable of people."

            "Are you saying that Rave's crazy?" le Puff growled.

            "Yes," Riddle replied without hesitation.  He laughed outright at the murderous expression on Huff le Puff's face.  "I think I could get used to being a 'Canon' character," he said to Filch.

            "Shh!  We're entering the library," was Filch's reply.

            Evil Dark-Lord-in-waiting he might be, but even Tom Riddle respected a librarian's wrath.  The small posse was silent as they entered the library.

            If Irma Pince thought it odd to see their little group tiptoeing in; Filch, a coldly handsome Slytherin student, and the shaggy-haired, dirty woman in tattered robes all following the cat, she didn't say anything of it.  They were quiet, they weren't attacking anyone, and that was all she cared for.  She went right on sorting books as they crept in and crept out again a few minutes later.  The only person she mentioned it to later was Pomona Sprout after a few glasses of sherry at the Three Broomsticks.

            "She got to the Ravenclaw dorms and out again, at least," Filch offered once out of the library.

            Huff le Puff kicked at a corner, missed, and folded her arms sulkily.

            "So?  Maybe she missed one and it followed her out and killed her in some diabolic and gory way."

            "You mean like you do to those Sue-creatures?" Riddle asked.

            Le Puff glared.  Riddle smiled back, making sure nevertheless that his wand was within easy reach.

            Filch rolled his eyes, then stopped in his tracks.

            "Do you hear that?" he asked.

            Le Puff stopped glaring at Riddle long enough to listen.

            "N—" she started to say.  Then: "Yes."  The faint shrill sound echoed through the hallway again.

            "What is that, and should I be worried?" Riddle asked, drawing his wand.

            "No," said le Puff, walking forward again.  "It's just Rave.  And she must be happy about something, to be laughing like that."

            "—and so I said to him, 'You want to do _what_ to that eggplant?!'" Rave'n'claw said, then paused a moment and shrieked with laughter again.  Riddle winced and put his fingers in his ears.  He narrowly avoided skewering himself with the wand he still held, which was quickly shoved into a robe pocket.

            Rave'n'claw had shoved herself into a niche in the wall next to a large stone serpent, around which she had flung a companionable arm.  It was to the statue she was talking.  Huff le Puff stopped in front of the alcove and stared, put her hands on her hips, and stared some more.  At last, she threw back her head and laughed delightedly.

            "Rave my dear, you've found him.  A statue!  Who would have thought.  Something with even less freedom then we have."

            Riddle stared.

            "I've never heard you sound so… sane," he managed.

            Filch smiled with an almost paternal pride.

            Rave'n'claw ignored them both and went on chatting to the snake.  Every now and then she stopped talking and nodded.

            "That's _exactly_ right," she said happily.  "I don't see why gerbils shouldn't—  Oh, of course."

            "Rave, come on out here and talk to us," Huff le Puff said, still smiling slightly.

            Rave'n'claw took no notice.

            "_Rave_, this isn't funny."  Her voice grew rougher with annoyance.  She concentrated on Rave'n'claw, but no matter how hard she tried to reach out and tweak 'Claw's essence, she couldn't find her.  For all that her partner was sitting within full view, she didn't register to le Puff's otherears.

            "Oh for Merlin's sake…"  If she couldn't talk to Rave'n'claw or access her essence, she would have to get in there and talk to her face to face.  She stepped into the alcove, evading Filch's grab for her arm.

            There was a faint popping noise, and now le Puff found that she couldn't hear anything other than Rave'n'claw.  The constant hum of noise in her mind from the hundreds of Canon characters around her was immediately silenced.  As was, she noticed, the stinging that meant the presence of Sues.

            The next thing she noticed was that it was very cramped in the niche, with two people and the large statue.  She had to wedge herself in between the wall and the sculpture, with the snake pressed uncomfortably against her shoulder.

            And she felt almost… it took her a moment to place the feeling, it had been so long since she'd felt it.  She felt almost _normal_.  Like she could just rise out of this body and go back to the force she had been when the world was new and not even in its first draft, just a pure idea in a mind on fire with inspiration.  She felt like _Hufflepuff_.

            "What—?" she croaked.

            Rave'n'claw looked up and smiled.

            "If you were a tea cozy, what pattern do you think you'd be?" she asked.

            "Lightning.  Or maybe badgers.  Or badgers getting struck by lightning," Huff answered absently.

            Rave'n'claw nodded.

            "I think I'd be cherry-flavored," she said.

            Hufflepuff stopped and stared.

            "You're not sane, are you," she said, disappointed.

            Rave'n'claw giggled sadly.  "No going back, not for us.  Poor Slytherin, he's had no one to talk to for years now.  I was just giving him my theories about pizza, and how it's really all a foul plot to brainwash us when you came in."

            Huff looked up.  "That sounded almost rational, except for the part about the pizza" she said cautiously.  "But still crazy."

            'Claw shrugged and turned back to Slytherin.  She struck up a listening pose.

            "He says that in a universe of infinite possibilities, the ones with the cucumbers in them always come out on top," she said, presumably translating for Huff.

            Hufflepuff considered this, then ignored it, and went right on ignoring Rave as she started to babble about the possibilities of powering the world on scotch tape and used car parts.

            _This place is cut off from the world completely, which is why I can't feel anything._  She glanced at the entrance to the niche and was unsurprised to find it silvery and opaque.  It was impossible to hear or see anything through it, which explained why Rave hadn't responded when called.  _It's like a miniature universe, and there are no Sues here, so I'm not crazy.  Rave's not _as_ crazy, at least.  I think.  The Sues must have stored Slytherin here because he can't affect or even sense anything in here, and _we_ can't sense _him_.  There's no Canon for him to be a part of._

            A new thought arrived on the heels of that one.  _If there's no Canon, then there're no Sues to warp it.  So he still must be connected to our Canon some way, if he's trapped as a statue.  We could see and hear in from the opposite side, so there's always the possibility that it can get in and we can't get out.  This could just be a very clever trap to get all of us out of the way in these little pockets of non-world._

            There was only one way to determine that.  She looked up and eased her way over to the silvery barrier between them and the normal world, ducking under the snake's—Slytherin's—nose.  With only a bit of hesitation, she pushed her hand through the barrier.  It resisted initially, stretching under her hand like a stocking, then gave way.  She drew it back before Filch or Riddle could have the bright idea of grabbing it.

            "Well, there's good news, 'Claw," she said.  "It seems that we can get out of here, so the world outside isn't going to end in a flood of astoundingly beautiful freaks."

            Rave'n'claw paused in her chatter to Slytherin.

            "At least the dust mites will survive," she said solemnly, and went back to her conversation with the statue.

            Huff stared, shrugged, and went on thinking.  As soon as she went back out there and was subjected to the Sues again she knew she'd go insane, so she might as well make the best of this opportunity.  _Just being free of Sues doesn't heal us, then.  I'm still trapped in this body, as are the others.  We're going to have to do _something_ to reverse that._

            A new, unpleasant thought popped up.  _If it's possible to reverse it.  For all I know, once you're stuck in mortal form you're stuck for good._

            She shook her head, lips twisting into a snarl as the ghost of le Puff reasserted itself.

            _No.  We can fix it.  We _have_ to.  Things are going crazy enough with us trapped the way we are, what would happen if we were just _gone_?_  The thought of a horde of Serenas and Alamantheas, all with flowing locks and jewel-bright eyes marched through her mind and was immediately relegated to a distant corner.  She would wake up screaming over that thought, she knew.  _But what if it's not reversible?  We have to at least consider the possibility.  Then we… I don't know.  We hand the power over to someone else, some other force._

            But she didn't want to have to turn outside their own universe; that would be demeaning.  She could only imagine what the guardians from other dimensions would think if she had to come begging for help.  Besides, they were beset enough on their own.  She'd heard that poor Manwë from Middle Earth had barricaded himself in whatever they used for an afterlife over there and refused to come out.

            _It won't come to passing the guardianship on,_ she reassured herself.  _We'll find some way.  We just have to work on it.  Filch'll channel Canon and we'll know what to do._

            She raised her head again.  It had been a long time since she'd thought deeply and well, and it felt _good_.  She almost wished that she could find a way of taking this bubble of non-universe with her.  The disconnection from Canon was unnerving, but the reliefit provided from the constant derangement of the Sues was worth it.  If Rave'n'claw had been in her right mind she could no doubt have designed a way to take the blank space with them.

            It only took one look at 'Claw to know that she wasn't in her right mind, though.  Hufflepuff looked at her companion and felt her face twisting into something between a grimace and a grin.

            "Come on, Rave," she said.  "Let's go outside and talk to Filch and that Riddle boy.  I'm sure that Slytherin's had enough of your prattle for one day."

            Rave'n'claw threw her arms around the statue's neck and clung there weeping.

            "You can't ask us to part!" she cried.  "Not when we just met!"

            "You knew him before, Rave.  You've hardly 'just met'."  Unswayed, Huff grabbed one of 'Claw's spindly arms and began to walk towards the barrier.  She was shorter than Rave'n'claw, but a good bit heavier, and it was no hard task to drag her away.  Then again, it wasn't a terribly easy one either.

            "_Good night,_" shrieked 'Claw. "_Good night.  Parting is such sweet sorrow_

_            That I shall say '—_"

            "Oh, do shut up," Huff said, relinquishing her hold.  Rave'n'claw sprang back to the statue as if she were made of elastic, and clung there.

            "We can't stay in here," she warned 'Claw, who paid her no mind.

            So that was how Filch and Huff le Puff came to carry a statue of a stone snake that was really the guardian of Slytherin down to the basement where Filch made his home.  Huff le Puff didn't remember anything that had transpired within the non-world bubble except for in a vague, shimmery way.  The only thing clear in her mind was the need to kill the Sues.  Kill them _all_.

            And that little Quirke brat.

Shakespear, _Romeo and Juliet_, 2.2.199-201.  Hey, there're so many bad songs and poems being quoted on ff.net I figured I might as well put in something _good_.


	10. Antagonism

Apologies for the long delay.  Please point out any errors of any type.

Chapter Nine:  Antagonism

            Selene Katalynia Acacia Moonsong Potter-Snape (though her close friends called her Kat) shook back her shimmering silver locks, her amethyst oculars flashing indignantly.

            "What do you _mean_ he's not here yet?" she demanded.  "He's my One True Love!  He's _drawn _to me with every fiber of his _being._  My heart _yearns_ for him."  She glared down at the hapless messenger, her hands beginning to glow menacingly.

            The messenger, a lesser beauty by the name of Neko Oshiwara, quailed.  She ran her perfectly manicured fingers through her bright pink hair and bowed several times.

            "Hai, hai, Kat-chan.  Don't be angry with me!"  Neko couldn't keep just a hint of a chirrup from her voice.  "He's in the halls, with that ugly old man and those two weird women."

            "With two other women!"  Selene's already doe-wide eyes grew even wider.  Her hands stopped glowing.  She collapsed on a conveniently nearby chair and began to sob.  Before she had the chance to work herself up to a really good bout of hysterics, Ravyn Nightkiller stalked in.

            Ravyn never walked anywhere, she always stalked; she never smiled, she smirked.  Though she didn't have as much in the way of titles as Selene, Ravyn was her equal in power.  Or at least that's what _she_ liked to think. Selene personally thought that Ravyn lacked the finesse to match her.

            "What've you got the waterworks turned on for now?" she growled, slumping into a chair.  She swept her waist-length ebon hair behind an ear and adjusted her glower to be suitably imposing.

            Selene was too busy agonizing over her wayward soulmate to notice, and even if she had, she wouldn't have been impressed.  Who needed threatening facial expressions when one could call storms out of the sky with a thought?

            "My Love is lost!" she cried, flinging a hand against her forehead.  If not for her incredible constitution the pale skin there would have been horrendously bruised, she repeated the motion so often.

            "What, again?" Ravyn asked sardonically, twirling her wand (thirteen inches, oak, with a special core made of thestral tendon and a griffin's feather that gave her unparalleled power in both the Dark Arts and Transfiguration) idly in her slender fingers.

            Selene stopped sobbing long enough to glare at her co-ruler venomously, before remembering the tragedy of the situation and bursting into a new spate of tears.

            "He's with those two women who came in.  You know, the ugly ones."

            Ravyn nodded and stood up, brandishing her wand.

            "I'll go take care of them," she said, her smirk widening.  "Then you'll have your Tom, and we can work on getting my Lucius."

            Selene's hand shot out and gripped Ravyn's wrist with surprising strength for someone supposedly prostrate with grief.

            "No, you fool," she hissed, then remembered Neko, who was standing by watching with an interested, vaguely calculating look on her pert face.

            "Get out," Selene said, waving Neko away.  It didn't do to have one's lessers getting the idea that there was a division in the upper echelon.  They tended to get the idea that this constituted weakness.  But Selene wasn't weak.  She was the most powerful witch in existence, and more importantly among the company she kept, she was also the most beautiful, intelligent, and had the best singing voice.  All she needed to do now was find her Love and redeem him from the heinous path he'd been following.  Oh, it was so tragic!  For lack of love early in his life, he'd pushed away the world, determined that he would cause it to suffer as he had.  With her love, he'd surely see the light, and they'd—

            Ravyn impatiently cleared her throat and brought Selene out of her reverie.

            "You can't go now!" Selene shrieked quietly (one of the many obscure skills she'd mastered to attain her position).  "You know that they're a threat, and we can't afford to—"

            She stopped herself.  She'd been about to say 'we can't afford to lose you right now', but that just didn't seem the politic thing to mention.  Selene might have been a naïve, trusting lass with a heart of gold, but it never did to let one's minions know that they were expendable.

            "We can't afford to take them on without knowing just _how_ powerful they are," she substituted.

            Ravyn glared at her suspiciously, but Selene wasn't unduly worried; Ravyn glared at everyone suspiciously, when she wasn't glaring at everyone menacingly, or cursing small children and fluffy animals.

            "They can't be more powerful than us," Ravyn protested.  "They can't even sing."

            "It never does to underestimate your enemies," Selene lectured, leaning back.  "What we need to do is—"

            She cut herself off as Neko stuck her head around the corner.

            "Yes?" she demanded.  "Why are you back? I'd ordered you out."

            "A letter addressed to you, Kat-chan," Neko said shyly, stepping forward and proffering the letter.

            Selene snatched it eagerly.

            "Is it a love letter?  An ardent declaration of undying devotion?  A… why is there blood on it?"  She threw the letter onto a side table in disgust.

            Neko shrugged and smiled disarmingly.  "Some of the animagi were playing with the owl carrying it.  You know how they are."

            Oh yes, Selene knew how the animagi were, just like every other member of her little army.  Scheming wretches, the lot of them.  They'd betray her in a heartbeat if it meant Lucius, or Harry, or Draco, or whoever their Love was would look at them.  No doubt they'd been trying to get at her letter.

            She picked the letter up again, holding it slightly away from her so as not to ruin her lilac robes, which perfectly complemented her eyes.  A cursory check of the seal showed that it was unopened, and she smiled slightly in triumph.  Another detail caught her eye.  The address to the letter read 'Miss Mary Sue', not 'Selene'.  She frowned at the sight.

            "They always get my name wrong!" she complained, reaching for a letter opener.  She remembered Neko before she opened the letter.

            "Leave," she ordered.

            The girl scurried out, and Selene turned back to the letter with its insulting name.

            "I'm not Mary Sue, I'm Selene," she muttered angrily to herself.  "Mary Sue's just such an _ugly_ name, I don't imagine how…"  She let her diatribe trail off as she opened the letter and skimmed it quickly.  Ravyn scowled at her from her chair, but didn't sacrifice her dignity enough to come and read over her shoulder.

            Selene's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in indignation.  She balled up the letter (horrid, _horrid_ letter) and threw it across the room with a shriek of rage.  A small ceramic mouse on the table by her burst into purple and blue flame.

            She sat as still as she could, fists clenched, breathing heavily through her mouth, until her throat relaxed enough for her to speak.

            "How _dare_ they," she snarled.  "To challenge _me_, like some common little _witch_.  Me!"

            Ravyn looked on, tapping her wandtip against her teeth and smirking.

            "What's got your dander up?" she asked at length.

            Selene shot to her feet with a cry and started pacing.

            "Those awful women have challenged me to a wizard's duel!" she snapped.

            "For what?"  Ravyn didn't seem terribly upset by the news.  Then again, Selene thought, she wouldn't.  She'd probably be delighted if Selene was defeated; that way _she_ could kill the women in a rage of supposed grief after they were tired out by fighting Selene, and go on to take over Selene's army.  If she played her cards right, she could come out looking like a hero.  Selene had no intention of letting her get those cards in the first place.

            "Control of Hogwarts," she replied, hoping that Ravyn hadn't noticed her inattention.  "If I lose, we have to leave.  All of us," she added silkily.

            That got Ravyn's attention.

            "No!  Surely we can negotiate."

            Selene stopped her pacing in front of Ravyn and arched one slender brow.

            "Why Ravyn, I didn't know you had so little trust in me.  Weren't you just saying that those two women are no match for us?"

            Ravyn froze for a moment, then reflex took over and a smirk surfaced.

            "Nonsense, Selene.  You're jumping at shadows.  Still, wouldn't it be prudent to make sure that just in case by some strange chance they do turn out to be stronger than us the entire Cause isn't lost with you?"  She settled back, confident that her smooth talking had erased Selene's suspicions.  Selene gave a small, simpering little smile and fluttered her eyelashes to hide the contempt in those amethyst orbs.

            "Of course, Ravyn.  How _silly _of me not to have seen before.  I'll see what we can do."  She had no intention of doing any such thing.  "But you know how unreasonable ugly people can be.  It might be rather hard to change their mind," she said quickly.

            Ravyn mumbled something unintelligible and probably none too complementary, but didn't protest further.  Selene smiled sweetly and flicked her hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head.

            "What are the other terms of the duel?" Ravyn asked.

            Selene gave a dismissing little wave of her hand.

            "The usual.  As the challenger they decide the time – a month from now – and we decide the place.  We can use any powers at our disposal," she replied.  She paused and posed artfully, one hand against her chest, the first two fingers of the other lightly touching her mouth.  It gave her a look both mischievous and innocent, she thought.  A quick glance into one of the many mirrors scattered around the room confirmed it.

            "Where shall we set it, Rave darling?"

            Ravyn sat up to think, tossing her wand carelessly on the table.  She looked up again after a moment with a bright malicious smile.  It was a look that would have turned Orla into a gibbering heap.  It might have even worried Huff le Puff.

            Orla wasn't bothered nearly so much by Alexis' harebrained scheme to rid Hogwarts of Mary Sues as she would have been if she'd known about Ravyn and Selene.  She was a bit busy being worried about other things.  In the initial chaos of getting installed at Hogwarts, finding her classes, and trying to avoid the carnivorous carpets that roamed the halls she'd been too busy to think about anything else.  Then there had been Huff le Puff's reappearance and Alexis' plots.  That had all settled down by now; they hadn't received any reply to Alexis' letter, and the le Puff front had been blessedly silent.  So Orla's mind, deciding that she was getting to complacent and, Merlin forbid, _normal_, had reminded her that she had many more things to be afraid of than le Puff.  Like gnomes.

            She couldn't go to sleep for thinking about them creeping up on her in bed.  The bed was tall, but they could easily climb up the curtains.  And then there would come the crunch, and that excruciating pain.  She'd taken to spending the night in an armchair with Gnasher's cage nearby.  Not even her deathly fear would persuade her to take him into bed with her; he smelled like rotten meat.  Never mind how many times she shoved him spitting and scratching into the showers, he managed to stink himself back up by the next day.

            That was why she was blearily eyeing the margarine, trying desperately to keep her eyes open at breakfast.  Her head dipped forward, and she barely yanked it back in time to stop it from dunking into her cereal.

            Alexis regarded her primly from over the top of a massive textbook on magizoology.

            "Orla, really," she said.  "Don't you think you should try and get at least a little sleep?  This phobia of yours is truly—"

            Alexis' voice was drowned out as the mail, or rather the mail-carriers, swooped in as they did every morning.  Orla stared up at them, grateful for an excuse to ignore Alexis, who might be a dear friend, but was also a terrible lecturer once she got going.

            To her surprise, one of the birds separated from the rest and headed for her.  She blanched when she saw just whose bird it was.  The owl headed for her in a kamikaze dive, backwinging only in the foot before it hit the table.  It came to a halt in the middle of Orla's plate, spraying her with syrup and crumbs.

            Orla eyed the bird askance, pushing her chair away from the table.  The owl stared right back at her, tawny eyes baleful.  Grudgingly, it extended the leg with a letter tied to it.  Orla undid the fastenings quickly, expecting to feel its beak at any second.  Once the letter was detached, the bird launched itself back into the air without another glance, shedding feathers on the table.  Jared fished one out of his juice and laid it neatly on Orla's plate, his nose wrinkling.

            "Whose bird was _that_?" he asked, nudging his plate away.

            "My aunt's," Orla replied, staring glumly at the letter.  It looked innocent, but she knew that once opened it would explode, or scream at her, or do something else as unpleasant as its sender.

            "Open it, Orla," Alexis commanded absently.

            The bell for first period rang then, mercifully.  Orla stuffed the letter into her bag and hurried off towards Professor Lupin's classroom without waiting for Alexis or Jared.  She had no desire to be bothered about her aunt, or the letter she'd received.  Alexis would doubtless claim that it was another of Orla's unresolved fears.  She was probably right, but she would go on to advise something as idiotic as standing up to Arane as the solution.  Orla preferred her mind and hide in one piece.

            For all of her determination to forget about it, the letter bothered her all morning.  She swore she could feel it waiting for her in her bag; it seemed to have developed a malevolent presence all its own.  All through Defense Against the Dark Arts she worried about it, and consequently did very bad on the blocking charm they were practicing.  She ended up accidentally setting her partner, a nice enough boy, even if he was a Gryffindor, tap-dancing uncontrollably when she tried it on him.

            In Potions they were taking a test, and Orla couldn't focus any better.  Every time she got a start on the chemical conversions they were practicing the thought of the letter popped into her head.

            It didn't help that Professor Snape had just stopped behind her and was reading over her shoulder.

            "_Six_ grams of powdered belladonna, Miss Quirke?" he murmured.  Orla bit back a whimper.  "You're trying to put your patient to sleep, not kill them.  Though if you're prescribing such a dosage for yourself I could hardly blame you."

            Orla hurriedly crossed out her answer and tried to bully her mind into focus.  She filled in half of her former answer, and continued working with the niggling feeling that it was still too high, and that she'd get her test back covered with red marks and sarcastic comments.

            She struggled through another half hour, then gave up.  Her already ragged quill tip found its way to her mouth, where she chewed at it thoughtfully while she looked over her answers.  She winced, shrugged, and signed her name in her characteristic illegible scrawl, recognizable only in that it was so indecipherable as to belong to no one else.  On her way out the door she tried to avoid Snape's glare.

            At lunchtime she gave up.  Rather than head down to the Great Hall, she returned to the Rookery.  It was nearly empty, most of the Ravenclaws being either at the meal or in the library proper, which suited Orla perfectly.  She dug the letter out of her pack at placed it on one of the small study desks that littered the common room.  It looked harmless, and Orla didn't _think_ Arane would include a hex or curse in a letter, but it paid to be careful.

            She broke the letter's seal and jumped back in case it exploded, or something with long teeth jumped out.  The letter just sat there.  So far so good.  The next step was to take the fire poker and carefully lift the first flap.  Nothing.  She could see the first few lines of Arane's thick-stroked handwriting.

            Still clutching the poker in one hand, she advanced upon the letter and picked it up hesitantly.  It remained inert in her hand.  Orla steeled herself and sat down to read.

_Orla,_

            _As you have not seen it fit to write me, I've taken the burden of communication upon myself.  Your mother has informed me that you've been relegated to Ravenclaw which, I suppose, is the best you could hope for, it being quite obvious that you have neither the cunning nor drive suitable for Slytherin.  May I remind you that though you have been Sorted into the house for those who are entirely taken with their own wit, it does not impart to you any mystical growth in intellect.  If you do not apply yourself in your studies, steps will be taken to ensure your diligence when you come home.  I will expect a reply to this letter within a week, or you may expect to face my distinct displeasure._

_            Arane_

Orla leaned back, too shocked to speak.  Her aunt hadn't done anything worse than make a few veiled threats and throw an insult or two around.  In fact, she had been practically _nice_, in a typically nasty Arane way.  She hadn't even taken more than a token jab at Orla's intelligence.

            Orla suddenly felt ravenous.  She shoved the letter into a pocket and bounded to her feet and out the portrait hole.  Halfway down the hall between the portrait leading to the kitchens and the Great Hall itself she caught sight of Alexis and waved.

            Alexis stared at her, open mouthed.

            "What's gotten into _you_?" she demanded when Orla skipped down the stairs to meet her.  "You're so… happy."

            Orla opened her mouth to reply, then felt her throat freeze up.  The color drained from her face as she caught sight of Huff le Puff and her cronies walking down the hall towards them.  They were discussing something, le Puff illustrating her part of the conversation with hand gestures that Orla didn't want to interpret, but it was only a matter of seconds before one of them looked up and noticed the students.

            She grabbed Alexis by the arm, covered the girl's mouth with her other hand, and ran.


	11. Infection

Concrit appreciated, please point out any errors.

Chapter Ten:  Infection

            Rave'n'claw was pining.  She had nestled herself under Slytherin's chin and refused to move for all of Filch's cajoling or le Puff's threats.  Riddle hadn't helped; he'd conjured up a box of peanuts and threw some at her every few minutes.  She'd become quite adept at catching them before they hit the ground.

            Huff le Puff got up from her chair and walked over to 'Claw for another try.

            "Come on, Rave, time to go hunting," she said.  She prodded at her partner with one booted foot.

            Rave'n'claw ignored her.  She continued to stare at her wriggling toes, as she'd been doing for the past hour when not catching peanuts.

            Huff le Puff bent down, meaning to drag her out by the hair, and that was why the bird sped over her head instead of raking her scalp with its claws.  She threw herself to the side as she felt the breeze of its passage.  When nothing attacked her again, she poked her head up from where she'd landed half-under a table.

            A hawk stared back at her.  It wasn't just any hawk.  Its eyes were a deep midnight blue and sparkled with intelligence.  Its feathers were a glossy midnight hue, and if one looked at them carefully it seemed as though one could see stars sparkling in them, entire constellations and galaxies.  Tied to its silvery leg was a roll of light lavender parchment.

            Huff le Puff smiled, revealing what looked like far too many teeth.

            "Nice birdie," she purred, sliding forward on her stomach.  "Pretty birdie."

            The bird cocked its head to the side and let out a melodic chirp.

            One hand shot out and seized the bird by the neck before it could fly off.  It squawked and slashed at her, but le Puff's grip didn't loosen.  She swung it around her head like a discus thrower, then brought it down on the tabletop.  The bird ceased struggling, its head lolling on its neck.  It let out a weak cheep as le Puff shook it again.

            "Oy, Filch!" she called through the door.  "I caught dinner."

            Le Puff toyed with her piece of meat as Filch read through the letter a third time.

            "I don't understand it either," he said.  He put it down beside his plate and cast her a stern look.

            "Don't play with your food, le Puff."

            "Oh, she's already done _that_," Riddle muttered.  He took another bite.

            "It tastes too sweet," she whined.  "Maybe if we let it rot under a log for a few weeks, let lots of plump little maggots get into it..."

            Riddle shoved back his plate with a grimace.

            "Thank you for that appetizing image," he said.

            Le Puff tipped her meal over the side of the table, where the badger pounced on it.  She reached down and patted the creature as it ate.

            "Whatever it means, it can't be good," Filch said.  He picked it up again.

            "'We agree.  Meet us at the Chamber of Secrets.'  Why would anyone send us _this_?"

            "Sues," le Puff said.  She didn't look up from the badger.

            "No, subtlety was never their strong point.  Someone else, then."

            Now le Puff looked up.

            "That Quirke brat…"

            "_No_, le Puff.  You may not kill the students.  I don't care what it is she's done to you, or you think she's done to you."

            They glared at each other across the table.  Riddle ignored them both and occupied himself with feeding tidbits to Nevermore.  When he looked up and found them still glowering, he smacked his palm down on the table sharply.  Their gazes swiveled to his; Filch's stern, le Puff's murderous.

            "If you're quite finished trying to stare each other down, I'd like to get home," he said.  He didn't try and keep the venom out of his voice.

            "I've helped you with your little crusade, now it's time for you to help me," he said.

            Filch shook his head.

            "Mr. Riddle, it's not quite as simple as you seem to think.  We have no way of finding out which Sue brought you here.  As you've seen, there are quite a lot of them."

            "Then you obviously haven't been trying hard enough."  He stood and drew his wand.  "Perhaps all you need is the proper incentive."

            Huff le Puff shoved herself to her feet so violently that her chair was sent flying back.  It landed with a clatter, ignored.  The badger crouched by her feet, snarling.

            Of the three, Filch alone remained calm.  He pushed his chair back from the table and folded his arms, not moving his gaze from Riddle's.

            "That won't do you any good, Mr. Riddle," he said.  The boy's only reply was a sneer.

            Le Puff growled and inched closer, letting her hands drop down to her pockets to grasp her needles.

            Both Filch and Riddle turned to her.

            "Sit _down_, le Puff," Filch snapped.

            Chastened, le Puff sank to her haunches on the ground.  She rested one hand lightly on the badger's raised hackles.

            "If you want to get home, then I would suggest we start looking more closely at this letter," Filch said.  Riddle hesitated for a moment before lowering his wand.

            "I'll give you one minute before we go back to my way of doing things." he said.

            "You have been intimately involved in the Chamber of Secrets, I understand.  This might be a letter to you rather than us.  Some secret message or rendez-vous with whoever brought you here."

            Riddle sat back down slowly and sheathed his wand.

            "If that's the case, then shouldn't I know what it's about?" he asked.  He grimaced slightly and shifted in his seat.  "We can't just send a reply back asking for more information, thanks to that menace."  He dipped his head in le Puff's direction.

            "It's possible that…" Filch began, then stopped.   "Is something wrong?"

            A muscle in Riddle's cheek twitched.  He stood up abruptly, placing one hand on the table to steady himself.

            "I think that eating that hawk might not have been the best idea," he said.  "I don't –"  He stopped and pressed one hand to his stomach.

            Le Puff watched with growing delight as Riddle's features seemed to blur for a moment, and then reform.

            But… they were different.  So subtly that it was impossible to put a finger on exactly what was changed.  Perhaps it was that the cruel lift to one corner of his mouth had disappeared, and his eyes had lost their perpetual look of narrowed suspicion.  When he spoke, his voice sounded like the kind of voice that belonged to someone you could really, really depend on.  Depend on to do something other than twist you into new and interesting shapes, that is.

            "Where is my Love?  Where is my Selene?"  He looked around as if expecting to see Selene, whoever she was, sitting in one of the much-mended chairs.  All he saw was a number of le Puff's teeth bared in his direction in what was either a grimace or a grin.  If there was any difference between the two on le Puff.

            "I told you he wasn't Canon," le Puff said.  She spoke to Filch but kept her eyes fastened on Riddle.

            Tom ignored them.   He continued peering around the room anxiously, his eyes glazed.

            "Where is my Selene?" he repeated.  He took a step towards Filch.  "Excuse me, but have you seen a lovely young lady with silver hair and purple eyes?  She had extraordinary powers and can sing beautifully."

            Filch had opened his mouth to reply when he saw le Puff tense.  He leapt at her and caught hold of her arms as she sprang.  Her foot made contact with his knee and she started shrieking at him to let her go and let her go _now_ dammit, she was going to do her job.

            He just concentrated on keeping her away from Riddle, who stood in the middle of the room looking as if he'd been shot by a tranquilizer meant for an elephant.

            "Le Puff _don't_!" he panted.  "He's infected, not a—"

            She drove an elbow into his gut, which shut him up effectively and loosened his grip enough for her to dart away.  He launched himself after her and caught her around the waist.  Riddle didn't move, even when le Puff's fingers scrabbled at his feet.

            "Rave'n'claw," Filch grunted, trying to avoid le Puff's thrashing boots.  He gathered enough breath to bellow.

            "Rave'n'claw, you get out here this instant!"

            Rave'n'claw appeared at the door, mouth open to protest.  She didn't seem at all surprised by the scene she found.

            "Hold le Puff," he said.

            "Hold?" 'Claw asked, picked at a loose thread on her sleeve.  She wandered over to Riddle and poked at his sleeve, leaving holes where her fingernails touched it.  Huff le Puff surged forward and grabbed at Riddle's ankle.  Filch tried desperately to both hang onto le Puff and translate 'hold' into 'Claw-ese.

            "Hug her!" he said.

            Rave'n'claw's face lit up. 

"Oooh!  _Hug _her.  All right."

She fell down on le Puff and wrapped her arms around her.

            "Huffy!  Huffy Puffy!  We haven't had any quality time lately," she said.

            Filch released le Puff and got to his feet with a hiss.  He felt as his ribs, grimacing when his fingers hit the tender place where le Puff's elbow had struck.

            "This is bad, le Puff, very bad," he told her.  He scowled down.  She writhed in 'Claw's grasp, her face lifted up to stare at him with her teeth bared.  There wasn't anything in her eyes besides an animalistic fury.

            "If I can't count on you to control yourself, then you can't be trusted to hunt.  Riddle's no use, either."

            He paused, his lips compressing as he looked down at her.  She stared back up, eyes devoid of reason.

            "Damn you."  It wasn't clear to whom he directed his comment.  "I shouldn't have to do this.  I'm old.  I have no magic."

            Again, he paused.

            "Rave'n'claw, go and tie le Puff up.  There should be a pair of manacles in the chest by my desk."  At least those would come in handy, even if the Headmaster refused to allow him to use them on those miscreants that called themselves students.

            "Tie her up?  But why?" 'Claw asked.  She wrinkled her forehead in consternation.

            "Do it," Filch snapped.  He spared a glance for 'Claw and his features softened slightly.  "It's just for a little while," he reassured her.  "Until we get all of this mess sorted out."

            Rave'n'claw dragged her struggling partner out, and Filch turned his attention to the dormant Riddle.

            "You have caused us a great deal of trouble, Mr. Riddle," he said, taking hold of the boy's forearm.  "I suppose I could lock you in a closet somewhere, but…"

            Riddle jerked to life, his lips twisting into an idiotic grin.

            "Hello, old man," he said.  "Please don't run away screaming because I'm going to be a Dark Lord and slaughter and torture mounds of helpless Mudbloods and Muggles.  I'm good now.  Really!  My love Selene has redeemed me, and we're going to end hunger, war, and poverty!  Oh yeah, and don't believe Harry; he's a wanker and is going to take my place as Dark Lord!"

            Filch jerked his arm away and stepped back, as if Riddle was some dangerous strain of a highly infectious disease.

            "I suppose I should be glad I'm not important enough to merit that kind of reaction to ingesting pure Sue," he muttered.

            Riddle looked around.  That is, his head moved from side to side; he didn't appear to be taking anything in.

            "Where is my Love?" he asked.

            Rave'n'claw came skipping back in.

            "Is that all he says now?" she asked Filch.  "I liked him much better when he pointed his wand at people and made them leak."  She grinned and wriggled her claws.

            Filch patted her on the shoulder.

            "We'll get him back to normal soon enough," he said.  "All we need to do is find whoever owned that hawk."  He reconsidered what he'd said.  "_All_," he repeated with a snort.

            "I don't suppose you know where your love, er… Love might be?" he asked, turning back to Riddle.

            Riddle nodded, still smiling.  Filch was starting to find his never-changing expression mildly disturbing.

            "Yes, of course I do.  My Love and I are connected through the strongest bonds of the heart and soul.  I have felt her pull over the decades between us, and—"

            "Yes, yes," Filch interrupted.  "Then why did you keep asking us…?  Never mind, I made the tragic mistake of expecting logic.  The closet it is."  He rubbed at his ribs while he considered his next move.  Le Puff was useless, and Rave'n'claw nearly so.  Riddle wouldn't be a help, especially if he knew what they planned to do with his Love.  He walked over to find his old, much-abused mop.  It couldn't clean floors anymore, not after making contact with le Puff's head twice, but it would serve its purpose. 

Behind him, Rave'n'claw and Riddle engaged in a disjointed conversation.  Riddle babbled on about the Perfection and Beauty of his Love.  'Claw discussed the possibility of helping the avocados in their search for equal rights.  Neither seemed to be listening to the other.

Filch ended one side of the conversation by bringing the mop's haft down on Riddle's head.  Riddle collapsed in a heap.  Rave'n'claw peered down at him with interest and continued to blather happily.

"Come on, 'Claw, pick up his feet" Filch said.  He knelt down at grabbed Riddle under his arms with a grunt, wincing when the knee le Puff had kicked protested.

Obediently, Rave'n'claw picked up Riddle's feet and began to swing him back and forth.

"No, 'Claw," Filch said calmly.  "Help me get him to the closet."

They half-dragged half-carried him over to the closet where Filch kept his cleaning supplies.  After a bit of bending and scrunching, they managed to wedge him in between a tub of Malveta's Magical Mess Remover and Filch's spare brooms.  He hoped the brooms didn't nibble on Riddle too much; they could get playful when bored, and he hadn't fed them in a week.

He fought his way out of the closet and slammed the door firmly behind him.  Rave'n'claw bounced on her toes looking far too eager and happy for Filch's comfort.

"What do we do now, Mr. Filch?" she asked.  Her fingers crooked into claws.  "Do we go a-hunting?"

Filch let his eyes close for a heartbeat, then forced them open.  There was no way to avoid what was coming; certainly not by hiding in his rooms and pretending it wasn't there.  He cracked his knuckles and felt a small, grim smile twist his lips.

"Why yes, 'Claw.  I believe that's exactly what we're going to do."


End file.
